I have a soft spot for the modernist aesthetic of the Holloway Road Argos. It’s quite a stylish way to present a small inner-city box store.

Nice downtown photo which I’ve just been sent.

Very sad news out today on our dealer listserv: the death in December last year of Barcelona-area dealer Pelegrí Harò (Llibreria Delstres) aged only 70. He was a generous host who sold a fledgling hispanophile bookseller (me) lots of interesting things. His son had died in the summer.

Very curious egg, reported laid by a cockerel (male hen) in 1697.

Something fishy … 19th-cent fish weathervane on top of a Holloway Road building. Fish also found in the moulding above the window.

Why I love my neighbourhood part [significant number]: witnessed a supermarket worker today saying in a Caribbean accent to a presumably Greek old woman shopping, “hey! kalimera! Kala?”

Quite a #nuntastic woodcut in a book of Antwerp, 1599.

Reader’s marks in a book of Antwerp, 1599.

Everything’s bad but Kal-El is still the best

Staggering generosity of spirit. So much to look forward to.

Noting the difference between tyranny and regular sovereign power (the text says that one is led by greed, and the other, honesty). Early gloss to Aristotle’s ‘Politics’ (comm. Pietro Vettori) (Florence, 1576).

Cassettes and Walkman down from the attic. Mix-tapes! Apparently this stuff has cred in today’s playground.

A stack of Greek and Latin woodcut initials. Florence, Giunta, 1576.

Time to kill in central London with errands taking too little time + more waiting-around errands ahead + mistakenly no reading material. Something random bought from Oxfam (charity) bookshop to pass some time.

Biblical book cover. Medieval parchment leaf with text from Genesis used in binding.

Self and colleagues after Stuttgart last-night dinner. This weather is very exciting for us.

End of the Stuttgart fair. Books prior to packing.

Stuttgart’s Liederhalle cultural venue (where our book fair is) also has a concert of Turkish music this evening. This is what I am attending.

Decorative and hand-coloured book opening from late C16 Dilingen.

My corner at Stuttgart antiquarian book fair.

Winter morning in Stuttgart.

Now launching: www.leocadogan.com/Stuttgart26

Everything I need in here for a three-day book show and a five-night stay in Stuttgart.

Bookplate!? Who needs a stinking bookplate when you can mark your books with a red-hot branding iron? Here are two 17th c. “Marcas de Fuego” showing that the book was owned by the Great Convent of St. Francisco in Mexico City - S. FRAN.CO d MEX. CO. The second mark AP refers to the apostolica sedes.

The prominent Piferrer press of Barcelona was led by women for approximately 33 of the 44 years between 1750 and 1794. Source: ‘Mujeres impresoras’ webpage at bne.es

This is not un-wow. Detail of large intaglio-printed astronomical board game, Paris 1671, called ‘Le jeu de la sphere, ou de l’univers selon Tycho Brahe’.

So truly excited not to be doing the New York book fair this year. I love it but it dominates the first part of the year and skipping it is a chance to refresh and do things differently. After Stuttgart next week, I probably won’t be exhibiting at a fair until the autumn!

First time I have ever catalogued a clock face. A woodcut printed in Caen by Mme. veuve Alphonse Picard (I think early C19).

My guess: fourteenth-century breviary-lectionary.

Do you wanna play Pythagoras? Board game, Rotterdam, 1808.

Johannes Balbus' Catholicon -- an immense Latin grammar and dictionary. Printed in Mainz in 1460 by Gutenberg. BPL's copy is one of relatively few printed on vellum (animal skin). Taking some pics with my iphone(!), you can see collagen fibers, hand-applied pigments, and ink squash from the press.

so ist es! #Antiquariat

There is no finer place to be In Januar-ee Than Stuttgar-Tee 🎶🎶

Not a middle finger (finger seems really to be abstracted to line-pointer). Manicule, Mexico, 1708.

Such a welcome and unusual treat. Such versatility from the stars. ‘The playboy of the western world’ at the National Theatre.

Uppers and downers. A coffee-drinker and a beer-drinker. Amsterdam, c1840.

13th-cent women law lecturers! A section on learned women in a satirical work of Madrid 1666 just introduced me to Accursia, daughter of Accursius, editor of the gloss on Justinian. She is apocryphal, but more certain I understand is Bettisia Gozzadini of Bologna (1209-1261) (thank you Wikipedia).

Some nice use of typographical decoration. Madrid, 1766.

This woman is getting some reading done. Amsterdam, c1800.

"Bibliophiles will be able to read in libraries at Wightwick Manor, Powis Castle, mid Wales, and Kingston Lacy, Dorset." #books #reading #heritage #library www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

What birthday cards do you have for middle-aged male antiquarian booksellers? Well, we have this …

Are YOU the most depressing book plate ever? YES, You ARE!

2nd leaf recto of a very interesting book on nuns from Mexico, 1708, that I last had in 2022.

I like bugs to be on the paper rather than eating into it. A very engaging German brocade paper.

Stuttgart 26 - more than a Book Fair: almost 80 stands with 75 exhibitors - #newlocation #newvibe #youthcollectorszone #meet #youngpeople #friends

Early modern book titles can be long, but if transcribed unabbreviated in a bibliography also function as their own description of contents.

Gee, who could've foreseen that. Except everyone.

Laurens Janszoon Coster (1370-1440), the purported Dutch inventor of printing, is coming to the Stuttgart book fair! This block-coloured woodcut image is a copy of the statue in the garden of the Stedelijk Gymnasium of Haarlem, which is after a design by Romeyn de Hooghe (1645-1708).

Printer’s armorial! This belonged to Pedro Joseph de Alonso y Padilla (d.1771) on whom more here: historia-hispanica.rah.es/biografias/2643-pedro-joseph-de-alonso-y-padilla

Early reader’s notes.