‘The trick is to treat his paintings like Venice itself: to rove unhurriedly through his fictive streets and squares, to indulge in the pleasures of getting lost, allowing meanings to emerge by accident.’
Ben Street revisits some of Carpaccio’s most absorbing works at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin
Close up on a gorgeous astrolabe in shiny brass and covered in Kufi characters
The astrolabe being dismantled by the gloved hands of the curator
Inside of the mater revealed, covered in a concentric grid of Abjad numerals
Context shot showing the astrolabe on a protected surface, together with a larger astrolabe, a much smaller one (the size of a fob watch), dismantled, a globe and an armillary sphere, all brass
I’ve admired this 1068 Toledo astrolabe in its case and I studied every millimeter of it on digital images, and today I got to handle it with the medieval manuscripts group. Oxford is wild.
Je leest Kant om je eigen gedachten aan te scherpen. In _Metafysica van de zeden_ gaat het over ‘menselijke waardigheid’. Dat dit boek eindelijk volledig in het Nederlands is verschenen is rijkdom. Lees verder via de link.
Japanese carved brown wood image of a mermaid with sleeked back hair streaming behind her and a hand on her scaly tail.
#FolkloreThursday In Japanese folklore, eating the flesh of a ningyo, or mermaid, grants eternal life and youth. It was also said that Ningyo blood will cure any wound.
Boxwood ningyo netsuke, Tadayoshi, 19th century
collections.mfa.org/objects/19902
A 1551 print of Ptolemy’s Almagest annotated by Galileo Galilei has been newly discovered in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze! 🌙🔭🪐 #HistSci
The study points to using libraries and visiting museums as bringing these enormous brain health benefits ... who would have thought? Well, librarians and museum folk for a start ... www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
Rust zacht, Cees. Dank voor al het moois.
Afgelopen mei ging ik bij hem langs op Menorca. Hier gratis te lezen: literatuurmuseum.nl/nl/ontdek-on...
In collaboration with the Fondazione Palazzo Butera (Palermo) we are offering a fellowship to support pre & postdoc research projects on Palermo and Sicily for a four-month period to be spent in Palermo and Rome, by the end of 2026.
⏳ February 28, 2026
🔗 www.biblhertz.it/3767329/2601...
Breaking news: Composer Philip Glass withdrew his highly anticipated Symphony No. 15 from its scheduled Kennedy Center performance, saying “the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony.”
"In this whimsical maiolica sculpture, a well-dressed man leans forward in his seat with his head in a covered pot set above a fiery hearth. The vessel beside the hearth almost certainly held ink. The man’s actions are explained by an inscription on the chair: "I distill my brain and am totally happy." Thus the task of the writer is equated with distillation—the process through which a liquid is purified by heating and cooling, extracting its essence." https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/188899
Detail of inkstand showing damaged inscription
Side view of inkwell
Tips on coping from the Renaissance
Inkstand with a Man Distilling his Brains, maiolica, probably Urbino, ca. 1600. Inscribed in black on back of chair: “[…] CERV[...] IOTUTO LIETO” (Mi lambico il] cerv[ello] io tutto lieto; I distill my brain and am totally happy) (Metropolitan Museum of Art)
‘We suddenly notice a pair of human legs sticking out of the waves, like an artistic swimmer performing their routine in an Olympic swimming pool.’
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst on the ongoing resonances of Bruegel’s ‘Landscape with the Fall of Icarus’
Image of a beige-colored vellum page with circular dials attached by thread in the center. Brownish and red ink and faces of animals and a little bird also present
Manuscript volvelle with animal faces and a little bird cut into one of the dials 📚📜
search.library.yale.edu/catalog/9996...
Villa Farnesina Cubiculum B fresco depicting the Nymphs of Mount Nysa caring for the infant Dionysus.
The baby is shown being nursed or tended to by female figures in a lush setting. It is painted in a "Neo-Attic" or "lekythos" style, which mimics the look of 5th-c. BCE Greek pottery.
#FrescoFriday
Do join us on 19 April in London (other locations follow) to discuss why we should be interested in deep history: tinyurl.com/yc6tnvup
Work with me! 2-year postdoc (1+1) within COLUMN: Colonial Legacies of Universities: Materialities and New Collaborations (HORIZON_HORIZON-CL2-2024-HERITAGE-01-04). Topic: “Research of university botanical collections in relation to Italian and European colonialism”. Call at: shorturl.at/aurdS
If you are into classical architecture, it looks like the basilica designed by Vitruvius has been discovered in Fano in Italy. Not sure it is quite as it's been hyped (as amazing as Tutankhamun), but important none the less. tinyurl.com/4chwjseu @thetls.bsky.social
Interested to work on our collections? The Call for applications of the LECTIO – KU Leuven Visiting Fellowships 2026–2027 is now open. As in previous years, Special Collections offers a joint fellowship. We will be happy to welcome you!
Adriaen van Wesel, Jozef en de Drie Engelen, 1475-1477, eikenhout. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Op dit moment werk ik aan een digitale reconstructie van het Maria-altaar (1475-1477), dat is gemaakt door de Utrechtse beeldhouder Adriaen van Wesel. Hij maakte het voor de St. Janskathedraal in Den Bosch. Op de foto hieronder zie je een fragment van dit altaarstuk!
With these cheerful guardian angels by Dieter Huch, I wish you all a happy 2026!
Wishing everyone a peaceful holiday 🌟
From the Warburg’s Iconographic Database: a medieval Nativity scene, one example of how manuscript artists visualised the story in the Middle Ages.
Image: Bibliothèque nationale de France – lat. 511, fol. 48r, 1370 (circa).
#MedievalArt #Manuscripts
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Explore how early modern artists imagined nature.
Our new short course, led by Thomas Balfe, looks at Dürer, Bruegel, Rubens, Rembrandt and more, placing their works in wider cultural and intellectual contexts.
Fridays, 30 Jan–13 Mar (online).
Book now: warburg.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
Heads up, #earlymodern #skystorians! Get your books in for the next SRS Book Prize. Always a marvel to see the wonderful work being produced by scholars of this period.
Person viewing an exhibition related to Jane Austen, featuring displays of historical clothing and documents.
Jane Austen was born 250 years ago today ✨
Our new display, Dancing with Austen, explores how dance shaped her social world and drove the plots of her novels.
Now on display at the Weston Library.
#JaneAusten
very happy to share my review of Naomi Fisher's excellent book "Schelling's Mystical Platonism," in European Journal of Philosophy
*A must-read for anyone interested in Schelling*
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
6 rules of listening from the great humanistic philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm www.themarginalian.org/2017/04/05/e...
New fun podcast interview up, partly about history, partly about finding hope in our present: www.wmnf.org/rethinking-t...
On Monday 17 November (17.30-18.30) I’ll be giving a talk entitled “The Renaissance Theatre of Human Affections: Medical and Moral Reflections Adapted to the Musical Stage” at the conference “Theatre and Medicine in the European Renaissance” hosted by the University of Trier. Be welcome!
wrapping my presentation for this beautiful seminar at @bhmpi.bsky.social on Thursday morning (Rome time)🌿
#plantstudies #botany #premodernscience #histsci #arthistory 🌱
Do images have an epistemic role in botanical science?
In 1922, Brancusi created a dance costume for Lizica Codreanu and invited her to perform a dance to Satie’s Gymnopédies in his studio, surrounded by his sculptures.
Brancusi, The Birth of Modern Sculpture
20.9.2025 - 18.1.2026, H’ART museum, Amsterdam). www.hartmuseum.nl/en/exhibitio...
