Pinned
We are frequently asked why we don’t wear gloves in our manuscript videos. In today's #ManuscriptBasics, curator Dot Porter @leoba will do her best to explain. If you have a question, ask, and maybe we'll make a video to answer!
A long time ago, when the earth was green
and there was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen,
and they run around free while the world was bein' born,
and the lovliest of all was the Unicorn.
-Shel Silverstein
A unicorn leaps in the top margin of f. 305v, Ms. Codex 724, a 13th century illuminated Bible #DrolleryDonnerstag
🔗:
Bonus video:
Reblogged
SIMS Blog is Moving!
Dear Subscribers, This post is to let you know that the SIMS blog is moving. We are now part of Unique at Penn, the blog for University of Pennsylvania special collections. Our blog posts have been migrated there, and you can see them by filtering on the category “schoenberg institute for manuscript studies”. Future posts will be visible there, too. We encourage you to head over to Unique at…
I got an anonymous question earlier that I think is in regards to this post, asking if we would be leaving Tumblr.
WE ARE NOT LEAVING TUMBLR!
We're here for the long haul!
More details, for those who are interested: The SIMS blog is a Wordpress blog attached to our website (schoenberginstitute.org). Our entire website is being moved to the University of Pennsylvania Libraries website, so we needed to rehouse the blog, and it made sense to bring it under the Unique at Penn umbrella. The blog hasn't gotten much use recently, but we use it for long-form posts, and when it is updated the posts automatically come over here, too. I'll make sure that new posts on Unique at Penn show up here!
This week's #RainsfordDay book is this alchemical handbook of experiments and recipes. Instructions include transmutation of metals, making a small pearl or gemstone larger, creation of and uses for potable gold, and other elixirs, oils, and tinctures. Recipes includes medicinal applications such as flower remedies for asthma, consumption, and dropsie. It was copied by Charles Rainsford himself. Rainsford was an 18th century British army officer, fellow of the Royal Society, and alchemist, who collected (and copied) books about his interests. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1691)
🔗:
SIMS Blog is Moving!
Dear Subscribers, This post is to let you know that the SIMS blog is moving. We are now part of Unique at Penn, the blog for University of Pennsylvania special collections. Our blog posts have been migrated there, and you can see them by filtering on the category “schoenberg institute for manuscript studies”. Future posts will be visible there, too. We encourage you to head over to Unique at…
Reblogged theshitpostcalligrapher
1$ flea market score. Tiny glass 1960s perfume bottles. I love them.
Can you swap their heads ?
omg you can
Their meeting was foretold in the ancient texts
On April 17, PhD Candidate in Political Science and SIMS Graduate Student Fellow Abdulaziz Alotaibi will bring out LJS 459, an early copy of the long form of a popular treatise presented as a letter from Aristotle to Alexander the Great. Topics covered include statecraft, astronomy, astrology, magic, and medicine. It was written in Iraq between 1193 and 1211.
Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Register here:
Today's #FragmentFriday started out as a 14th century collection of laws, statutes and ordinances of Città di Castello, in Umbria in Italy, but more things were added in the 16th & 17th centuries: lists of holidays; roll of citizens by parish (parishes listed are St. Floridus, St. Jacobus and St. Egidius); record of fees collected, ranging in date 1514-1566; notarial documents; and more (Ms. Codex 91)
🔗:
Reblogged
'Wild Flowers of America'(1879) by M. A. C.
Watercolor and pen and ink title-page with watercolour and bodycolour drawings.
Oak Spring Garden Library.
Source: archive.org
It's time for April Showers! Hopefully they won't hinder our April-walks-in-the-garden, because the various labors of the month for April all involve GARDENS. To illustrate, here are April pages from calendars from a variety of books of hours from Philadelphia (and one non-book of hours...). The Zodiac is Taurus, which is represented by a bull.
Books of Hours on BiblioPhilly: https://bit.ly/3WFYXZc
LJS 463 (not a book of hours): https://bit.ly/33wlRcI
For #CoffeeWithACodex on April 10, Curator Dot Porter will bring out Ms. Codex 1603 and Ms. Codex 729, two substantial fragments featuring glossed texts. Ms. Codex 1603 is a quire from a glossed Second Corinthians (France, early 13th century), while Ms. Codex 729 is two unbound quires from a work dealing with a section of canon law (France, early 14th century).
Coffee With A Codex is an informal lunch or coffee time to meet virtually with Kislak curators and talk about one of the manuscripts from Penn's collections. Each week we'll feature a different manuscript and the expertise of one of our curators. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Register here:
A snail sneaks across p. 171 of Ms. Codex 3, three volumes of paintings or hand-colored sketches depicting mainly insects, fish and other marine life, birds and flowers. We don't know much about these books except that they were made in Japan, probably in the 19th century. If you know more, let us know!
🔗:
Reblogged
Palimpsest Discovered in Recently Acquired Roll
Roll before and after multispectral imaging. The poem is visible under the stain in the middle of the photo.
Exciting new discoveries are always possible in the world of manuscript studies, but even we were unprepared for what emerged from Penn’s latest acquisition. Recently, the Library purchased a fragment of a Genealogy of Christ roll—an important addition to our collection. “But upon close examination,” explains SIMS Curator of Digital Humanities Dot Porter, “it became clear that the parchment had been reused; an earlier text was erased, and new text was written over. It’s a palimpsest.”
Enter Multispectral Imaging, conducted by Dr. Helen Davies, assistant professor of the digital humanities in the English department and co-director of the Center for the Digital Humanities at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.
Helen Davies imaging the roll
Dr. Davies described the process: “I imaged the roll using multispectral imaging, and as the data was processed, words began to emerge.”
And not just any words.
Amey Hutchens, University of Pennsylvania Libraries Manuscripts Cataloger, has confirmed that the undertext is an entirely unknown poem, strikingly similar in style and theme to the works of the enigmatic classical lyricist Ricardus Astleaus.
“Could this be a lost work of the poet himself?” Schoenberg Curator of Manuscripts Nicholas Herman voices the question we’re all asking. “The implications are staggering.”
We welcome input from the scholarly community, who can read a transcription of the poem “Tete Numquam Relinquam” here.
Happy April 2! Just to confirm, yesterday's post was an April Fool's post - a Ricardus Roll, if you will. Thank you for playing along!
Reblogged
wdym the british library is going to auction off 20% of their manuscripts to private collectors in order to make up for their losses from the 2023 cyber attack?? HELLO???