Art-historian and author, Nigel McGilchrist (Coll, 1970 - 74), was a scholar at both Winchester and Oxford, and has lived in the Mediterranean area for over forty-five years, working initially for the Italian Ministry of Arts in the field of wall-painting conservation.  He taught at Rome University, for the University of Massachusetts, and was later Dean of European Studies for a consortium of American Universities.  He lectures widely in art and architectural history at museums and institutions in Europe and the USA. 

His twenty-volume series of studies of the art, archaeology and architecture of the Aegean Islands, was included in the Economist’s 2010 list of Best Book series of the Year.  His latest publication (2022) was a study of Pythagoras and Early Hellenic thought.  It looks at how Pythagoras brought a number of already very ancient, Eastern ideas into the thinking of Greece, and transformed the underpinnings of Western science, music and philosophy as a result.   

He now lives on the Greek island of Kythera.