When you've played Für Elise one time too many

My latest article is a review of Charlotte Appel and Nina Christensen's excellent "På sporet af børn og bøger" (Gads Forlag 2023). doi.org/10.14811/clr...

A very short story in two very crude woodcuts (from Tagliente's "Libro di abacho", Venice 1570)

The Louvre heist reminds me of other times when cultural treasures disappeared. One story that stays with me is the loss of the Golden Horns of Gallehus, Denmark, stolen in 1802 by a goldsmith who melted them down. Engraving in Jacobæus' "Museum regium" [1696], The Swedish National Heritage Board.

It's finally happed. The telephone directory has become a collector's item. auctionet.com/sv/4585726-d...

Välkommen till årets Rettigsymposium! Det äger rum den 26 november kl 13:15. Programmet bjuder på föredrag och samtal om aktuella forskningsprojekt knutna till Riksantikvarieämbetets arkiv och bibliotek. Evenemanget är kostnadsfritt och öppet för allmänheten – men föranmälan krävs: lnkd.in/dg_yv_Tv

Last week marked the inaugural meeting of the research network Objects of Knowledge, hosted at University of Copenhagen. It was a pleasure meeting everyone. I talked briefly about a fascinating item from our collections: one of Johannes Bureus’ copper plates. comm.ku.dk/research/inf...

Why is it assumed that the 'lectrice' would skip the preface, unlike the 'lecteur'? Women’s reading has long been a concern. This 1833 example suggests that the way a woman read was as much a subject of critique as the content she read. Preface in Fournier & Arnould’s "Struensée" [Paris 1833].

Three weeks to go!

Took a short break from the #SHARP2025 conference to visit the George Eastman Museum and was pleased to find a pretty library and cool book photos

Printers’ devices on the doors of Rush Rhees Library ✨ #SHARP2025

Beautiful conclusion from @henninghansen.bsky.social! By turning to these bibles, we can "restore voices that were never meant to disappear" #SHARP2025

The first book containing Sámi literature was published as far back as 1673. @amybrigataswanson.bsky.social used the image from @wikipedia.org. @henninghansen.bsky.social sitting next to me tells me he recognizes it: it's from the University of Tromsø, where he worked 😛 #SHARP2025

At the #SHARP25 conference in Rochester and enjoying Marie’s paper - both creative and intriguing!

My latest article explores the Oxenstierna family Bible: an annotated 1646 Swedish Bible once owned by the diplomat and statesman Count Bengt Oxenstierna (1623–1702). Read it here (in Swedish!): urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=... #bookhistory #swedishhistory

Feel free to sign up for one of our online introductions to the collections, followed by Q&A, held on 17 June at 16:15 (Swedish) and 18 June at 16:15 (English). www.raa.se/rettig

Call for applications: The Royal Swedish Academy of History, Letters and Antiquities is offering fellowships to young scholars and civil servants for projects dealing with the special collections at the Swedish National Heritage Board. Apply by 30 August 2025. www.raa.se/rettig

Thrilled to share that the anthology "Från handskrift till digitalt kulturarv: Perspektiv på specialsamlingar", that I’ve co-edited with @sjokvist.bsky.social has been published. It's available both in #openaccess and in print: www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.... #bookhistory #specialcollections

Huge book with the supralibros of Pope Pius VI (1717–1799) and the bookplate of Carl Fredrik Fredenheim (1748–1803). Fredenheim met the pope in Rome, while researching Swedish diploma and scouting art for the Swedish king. He was given papal permission to carry out excavations of Forum Romanum.

Conference ongoing on Dispersed Libraries and the fates of book collections after times of war at the beautiful Ossolineum in Wrocław

EX FUMO IN LUCEM, from the dark to the light. This #earlymodern printing press is waiting for action. The motto was a marketing thing, as many publishers thought of themselves as bringers of light. To be more precise: they thought of themselves as sellers of enlightened paper goods. #bookhistory

Important stuff

It's like a 19C version of a 16C title page

The Swedish Research Council is offering 2 million SEK grants directed at scholars from outside Europe who want to relocate to Sweden and work at Swedish research institutions. The call opens 15 April. www.vr.se/english/just...

The book history hive mind solved this in no time. The stamp is from the library of the Benediktinerstift Lambach / Lambach Abbey, in Lambach in Upper Austria. Thank you, @schrift-sprache.bsky.social!

Does anyone recognize this library stamp? It's clearly been tampered with. It's in a copy of Olaus Magnus' ‘Historia de gentibus sepentrionalibus’ (Rome 1555) with the supralibros of the Benedictine abbot Placidus Hieber von Greifenfels (1615–1678) of Lambach, Austria.

Title page from the print workshop of Lyon-based Guillaume Rouillé (c. 1504–1589). Rouillé is considered one of the finest humanist printers of his time, and is credited with the invention of the sextodecimo book format. [The Library of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities]

Annotated Neungeomgyeong Sutra with Hangeul translation. Printed with movable (!) type in 1461, in both Hangeul and Eulhaeja type [National Museum of Korea, Seoul].

As Swedish so-called ‘fästmansband’ (literally ‘fiancé binding’) from 1797, which was a common gift to the bride-to-be.

Engraving of the grand Peace Banquet of 1649 in Nuremberg along with seating chart for all guests. The dog has not been allocated a seat but still manages to steal the show.

The bookbinding students in Leksand showed me some of the projects they're working on, and this notebook was one of my favorites. The runic inscription translates 'My adventures'.

In my mind I was standing completely still

Today I’m at the Leksand Folk High School to deliver a paper on medieval book culture. As I bonus, I get to pay a visit to the bookbinders and their splendid workshop!

Det här var en grej som jag häpnade över när jag jobbade på museum. Det ska bedrivas forskning på museer, men anställda på museer har inte tillgång till bibliotek. Vitterhetsakademien gör en jätteinsats som bidrar med detta.

Vitterhetsakademiens bibliotek prenumererar på hundratals e-tidskrifter inom arkeologi, medeltidens konsthistoria, kulturmiljövård, museologi & numismatik - fritt tillgängliga för alla registrerade låntagare! Kort replik av Eva Tranaeus och undertecknad om forskningsinfrastruktur bortom akademin.

The historian Schering Rosenhane's (1754–1812) collection of maps, engravings, and drawings was donated to our library in 1822 and has now been digitized. Rosenhane divided his collection into three categories: 1) topography 2) feasts 3) battle scenes. raa.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/co...

This heavy 1652 folio Seneca volume has been repurposed as a makeshift herbarium, with the name of the flower noted in the margin. Dozens of flowers have been preserved, throughout the volume. In other cases, only the name of the plant remains. Here we have a plant sample of "Echinospermum lappula".

The depiction in Johannes Schefferus' 'Lapponia' [Antwerp 1673] of the traditional Sámi cradle (strapped to the reindeer), looks quite different in the two first editions of the work. In the Oxford 1674 edition, the baby in the 'gietkka' (or 'komsio') looks a lot like a full-grown man. #bookhistory

FORNVÄNNEN Journal is published since 1906. Articles, news, reviews on Nordic #Archaeology, #HeritageScience, #Medieval, #History, #ArtHistory, #Runes. Contributions in English, and in Swedish, Danish, & Norwegian with Engl. summary. #OpenAccess, #PeerReview vitterhetsakademien.se/publikatione...

Yesterday we had a gingerbread house competition at the Swedish National Heritage Board. One of the runologists got invested and made a stave church inspired creation complete with actual runic inscriptions.

Idag går 2024 års Rettigsymposium av stapeln.

Just opened my mailbox to discover that my first article has been published today! If you want to know more about the Society of Antiquaries' printing plates and their relevance for antiquarian & scientific illustration head to doi.org/10.1017/S000...

A copy of Anders Bure's 1626 map 'Orbis Arctoi' is for sale at Stockholms Auktionsverk. Only few copies with the surrounding text remain. The library at the Swedish National Heritage Board owns one of the original printing plates (as well as a copy of the map). www.auktionsverket.com/sv/objekt/72...

Yesterday I showed a group from Institut français de Suède some fun French items from our collections: • L'Encyclopédie • De Scudéry's 'Alaric, ou Rome vaincue' (1654), inscribed by the author to Charles X Gustav • Lassus et Viollet-le-Duc's book on Notre-Dame (1853) • Letter signed by Louis XVI

Letter from Louis XVI to the Swedish queen Sophia Magdalena, in the Archives of the Swedish National Heritage Board. The letter concerns the death of the Dauphin, Louis Joseph. It's signed in Versailles on the 11 June 1789, just weeks before the Tennis Court Oath and the storming of the Bastille.

P is the most powerful letter

A striking illustration of the perils of the passive tense from Hutchinson's grammar (London, 1859).

In the peaceful setting of the cloisters of Riga Cathedral a number of curious objects are on display, including several bronze cannons. One of them has the following inscription: "CHRISTINA MEINE KÖNIGIN ZU SWEDEN MICH VEREHRET HIN DER STAD RIG. ZUE IHREM SCHUTZ UND IHRER ALLER FEINDE TRUTZ".

Hot off the press!

Reading literacy rates in the Baltics according to Russian Empire census data from 1897