At the Frick, a sumptuous and revelatory exhibition on the seventeenth-century designer Luigi Valadier
On books: The Atlas of Ancient Rome
It seems to be, or should be, a law of intellectual life that the more obscure a discipline, the better the scholarship that it inspires. Its very obscurity, like a dragon guarding a valued horde, repels all but the most valiant and serious scholars. Compare a Wikipedia article on Khloé Kardashian with one on Pius IX and you will get the idea.