Miguel Ángel Elvira Barba, professor of Art History at the Universidad Complutense, has been chief curator of sculpture at the Museo del Prado (1997–99) and director of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (2000–4). He is a corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute of Berlin, the Academia de la Historia, and the Academia de la de Bellas Artes de Santa Isabel de Hungría (Seville). Although he focuses chiefly on ancient art – Greek, Etruscan, and Roman – his lines of research include El Greco’s relationship with his Byzantine origins, to which he has devoted half a dozen articles since 1982.