Carnivalesque LXXXI, "Sexy Coins and why Giggs should have listened to the Greeks," an ancient/medieval edition of the festival, is up at Tom Sykes's In Pursuit of History.

Peter Monaghan, "Monumental Egyptologists," CHE, 15 January, reviews Ivor Noël Hume's Belzoni: The Giant Archaeologists Love to Hate and Jeffrey Abt's American Egyptologist: The Life of James Henry Breasted and the Creation of His Oriental Institute. Michael Dirda reviews Michael Murray's Jacques Barzun: Portrait of a Mind for the Washington Post, 18 January.

Graham E. Seel, "Good King John," History Today, February, paints a positive portrait.

Ken Johnson, "Getting Personal," NYT, 22 December, and Jed Perl, "Why Curators Matter," TNR, 18 January, review "The Renaissance Portrait: From Donatello to Bellini," an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Charles Hope, "The Wrong Leonardo?" NYRB, 9 February, reviews "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan," an exhibit at London's National Gallery of Art. Hope gives particular attention to its inclusion of two versions of The Virgin of the Rocks attributed to Leonardo.

Charles Isherwood, "Ben Jonson: In and Out of Shakespeare's Shadow," NYT, 19 January, reviews Ian Donaldson's Ben Jonson: A Life.

Faramerz Dabhoiwala, "The first sexual revolution: lust and liberty in the 18th century," Guardian, 20 January, is an excerpt from his The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution.