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Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Spadina House on Davenport Hill, less renowned than its ornate but much later neighbour, Casa Loma, and first erected by landowner and politician Dr. William Baldwin in 1818. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Montgomery’s Inn, on Dundas Street West in present-day Etobicoke. For twenty-five years, beginning in 1830, the hard-working Irish immigrant Thomas Montgomery presided over the place, providing food and lodging to travellers, and creating a social hub for the surrounding area. The inn is not to be confused with (John) Montgomery’s Tavern on Yonge Street, rebel headquarters of the 1837 Rebellion.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Mackenzie House, the grey-brick townhouse, steps from modern Yonge-Dundas Square and the Toronto Eaton Centre, where the firebrand rebel publisher lived from 1859 till his death in 1861; his family moved out in 1871. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Gibson House, between Sheppard and Finch Avenues, where David Gibson, a leader of the 1838 Rebellion of Upper Canada, lived in this house built in 1851 on his York Township farm. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour of the house, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit one of the jewels in Toronto’s historical crown: Fort York. This fort was the famous site of the Battle of York in 1813 and was founded in 1793 as a military outpost; it served as a barracks as recently as the First World War and is one of the city’s leading tourist attractions. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Inside the Museums views Toronto’s heritage museums for the first time as a single community — linked by events, personalities, and function. In this special excerpt we visit Colborne Lodge, well known to visitors to Toronto’s High Park. The home of prolific architect, surveyor, and engineer John Howard, as a museum, Colborne Lodge stands out for its original paintings and domestic gadgets. John Goddard takes us on a detailed tour, providing fascinating historical background and insight.

Presenting three titles in the Quest Biography series that profiles prominent figures in Canada’s history. Canada’s vast wilderness presents many opportunities for artists to capture its beauty in their distinct styles, and the country has produced its share of talented landscape painters. Tom Thomson’s work is known the world over for its wild, vivid portrayals of Ontario’s wilderness. Emily Carr captured the lushness of the west coast as well as the traditional culture of the indigenous peoples.

Heritage Toronto Book Award — Shortlisted, Non-Fiction Book Illuminates Toronto’s early history through its small heritage museums. A portrait of William Lyon Mackenzie stares from a mural at Queen subway station, his face as round and orange as a wheel of cheese. He served as Toronto’s first mayor, led the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837, and was grandfather to William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s tenth prime minister, whose own orange-pink visage graces the Canadian fifty-dollar bill.

This chapter from Julian Porter’s essential companion to all the major European museums and galleries discusses some of the greatest paintings to be found in the museums and galleries of Italy. His passion for art began with the seven years he spent as a student tour guide in Europe. In this segment he visits Milan, Arezzo, Parma, Mantua, Assisi, Naples, Orvieto, and Padua and discusses works by masters such as Titian, Tintoretto, Bellini, Giotto, and many more. In the usually pretentious arena of art connoisseurs, Porter’s voice stands out as fresh and original.

This chapter from Julian Porter’s essential companion to all the major European museums and galleries discusses some of the greatest paintings to be found in the museums and galleries of Germany and Austria. His passion for art began with the seven years he spent as a student tour guide in Europe. In this segment he visits Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, and Munich and discusses works by masters such as Rembrandt, Watteau, Raphael, Van Eyck, Dürer, and many more. In the usually pretentious arena of art connoisseurs, Porter’s voice stands out as fresh and original.