Theft in Venice NIALL HOBHOUSE Napoleon’s Plunder and the Theft of Veronese’s Feast

Thames and Hudson £25

Napoleon’s Plunder is history as photo op. Think Gibbon on Instagram.

Saltzman’s sharp eyes – for people, settings and dramatic scenery – draw us brilliantly across 250 years and most of continental Europe. Sometimes the focus slips, but that isn’t the point.

We start in Venice, at its cultural peak in the 1560s, with Titian finishing the great for Philip II (the series of six were reunited last for the Scuola San Rocco.