Renaissance man

What a difference a few months makes in TV. In January 2008 the BBC4 arts presenter Andrew Graham-Dixon said: "TV has rather been subject to an innate conservatism in its commissioning patterns. There's an element of, 'let's commission another series on the Italian Renaissance because we know people like that'." Yesterday BBC4 announced: "Andrew Graham-Dixon will investigate the birth of the idea of the artist in the Italian Renaissance." You could always have turned the gig down, Andrew.