viz.

(Image credit: BBC)

It’s only halfway through the week and we’ve already seen new images of King Richard III and Robert Johnson. I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week has in store. These pictures are a big deal. The images help us to reimagine the persona of these figures, and seeing that I thought I’d take a moment in this week’s post to highlight the discoveries. The Tudor kings who came to the English thrown after Richard III perpetrated history that suggested Richard was a grotesque tyrant. Commentators on this week’s discovery are suggesting how traditional renderings, perpetuated by luminaries such as William Shakespeare, might be historically inaccurate. Shakespeare’s Richard III is a complex plotter who we appreciate for his witticisms, but whose disgusting figure personified his vileness. This understanding might be far from the truth, for whatever it’s worth. Richard III did have scoliosis (see the remnants of his spine below), but scholars are revisiting the extent of his supposed vileness. As for Robert Johnson, previously only two images of the guitar player were known to exist, one of them merely being the size of a postage stamp. In this newly authenticated image, we’re treated to another glimpse of someone we hardly know.