A Welsh mountain landscape to start the working week ⛰️ Low cloud over the summit of Cader Idris, from Llyn Cau 📷 My own, 4th September

A fine autumn morning in Cambridge.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, diplomat & wit, born #OTD 1694; known for his worldly Letters to his Son, published posthumously in 1774 & described by Samuel Johnson as teaching ‘the morals of a whore & the manners of a dancing master’. National Portrait Gallery London

Portrait of a young man: polished late Mannerist portrayal of a young noble holding a medal, with statuette of Apollo Citharoedos, oil on panel 1561 by Alessandro Allori, Florentine artist, pupil of Bronzino; died #OTD 1607. Ashmolean Museum

I could never really grasp how writing on medieval wax tablets would be legible, until a recent visit to the _Archives nationales_ in Paris: in this example, the stylus leaves a white trace in the black wax:

I’m in Vienna right now. A city which went from being the intellectual and cultural capital of the world to a “provincial backwater” (to quote Brian Barry) in a couple of decades due to nationalism, anti-semitism and fascism which drove away the leading scholars and artists it didn’t murder.

Well, here's some good news to start the weekend. Negotiating a treaty is one thing, but the work only starts once it's ratified and it looks as though the High Seas Treaty (aka BBNJ) will soon be up and running. This provides structure & standards & is a big step in protecting our ocean. 🎉🎉🌊

Inspiring #research in action from @carlsayer.bsky.social, restoring #ice-age ponds in Norfolk. The resurrected ponds include rare species lost from other, surviving ponds, such as various-leaved pondweed, which is only found on one other site in Norfolk. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Great White Egret. Perfection in flight #birds

”Sunt lacrimae rerum...” Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro), poet of Ancient Rome, whose epic Aeneid inspired Western art & literature, died #OTD 19 BC. Landscape with Aeneas at Delos, 1672, by Claude Lorrain National Gallery London

Tuxlith Chapel in Milland, West Sussex is a curious medieval gem that fell into ruins following the construction of a large Victorian church in the village in the late 19th century. 1/9

Swimming with Thoreau. #WaldenPond

The Autumnal Equinox is close at hand as the world continues to turn and turn again.... BL Add 18856; Guyart des Moulins, Bible historiale; c.1420 CE; France, Central (Paris); f.5v

👀 #WellsNextTheSea #Norfolk Evening #reflections

Not waving but drowning: Stevie Smith, born #OTD 1902, English poet & novelist, whose work inspired Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath. Stevie Smith Archive Hull

The fragments of the Forma Urbis – the marble map of Rome made towards the end of Emperor Severus’ reign – set into Nolli’s beautiful 18th century map of the city is breathtaking. Fun to spot existing monuments but wondrous to see the now missing buildings. www.sovraintendenzaroma.it/content/il-m...

"More than ice is lost when the giants disappear: cultures, societies and entire ecosystems are braided around the glaciers." @kathillauthor.bsky.social writes about the receding glaciers of the Alps in this excellent and important essay. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Then and Now The Little Street Delft c.1658, painted by Johannes Vermeer; now identified by archival research as 40-42 Vlamingstraat, Delft, photographed (right) in 2017. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Autumnal view of Thirlmere, Lake District, 2023, photo by Joan Martin.

Colours on my walk to catch the 0942 train to Pisa.

The Beethoven of Mathematics: Leonhard Euler, Swiss polymath, died #OTD 1783, acknowledged by André Weil as attaining during his lifetime “undisputed leadership in all branches of mathematics, pure & applied”. Pastel portrait by Jakob Handmann, 1753 Kunstmuseum, Basel

Foucault's Pendulum: demonstration of earth’s rotation, conducted in 1851 by Léon Foucault, French physicist, born #OTD 1819. Le Panthéon | Science Museum London

A detour after a London meeting to visit St Etheldreda, Ely Place. The chapel is the main remnant of the former town palace of the bishops of Ely. The spectacular library of Bishop John Moore given to @theul.bsky.social by King George I in 1715 (and known as ‘the Royal Library’) was once kept here.

The elephant in the room....🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘 Bodleian Library Arch. G b.6; Historia naturale di Caio Plinio Secondo, tradocta di lingua latina in fiorentina per Christophoro Landino; 1476 CE; Italy (Venice); f.93v @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

The cartwheel twopence of George III was the heaviest copper coin ever minted for circulation in the British Isles. This is an extremely rare specimen made from solid gold. With a weight of 77.7g, it's even heavier than the regular copper version (56.7g). From the Hunterian collection, Glasgow.

Only the very best monuments for #HillfortsWednesday 🛖🥰 Incredible LiDAR of The Rumps coastal promontory fort nr Polzeath in north Cornwall Beyond the massive rampart earthworks the headland is dominated by twin pyramidal 'rumps' 😮, both iconic & sacred in prehistory 📷 LiDAR from NLS maps

Greylag Goose and Gosling on the levels #birds

Nicolas de Condorcet, French Enlightenment philosopher, political economist, mathematician, born #OTD 1743; protégé of Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, published landmark work on probability in 1785; reformer, champion of constitutional government, public education & equal rights. Château de Versailles

Roderick’s Examination at Surgeons Hall: inspired by Roderick Random (1748), by Tobias Smollett, Scottish novelist, physician, naval surgeon, died #OTD 1771; his vivid picaresque tales influenced 19th Century graphic satire & novels of Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot (Middlemarch). Wellcome Images

W is for Wren Library and their window view #WrenLibrary @trincolllibcam.bsky.social

Earliest extant portrait of an English king: Aethelstan (r. 924–927) with St Cuthbert from the Parker Library copy of Bede's two Lives of St Cuthbert (CCCC MS 183) Prof David Woodman of @camhistory.bsky.social highlights Aethelstan's impact on England's history www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/new...

Part of the beauty of Maria Gallenga’s #1920s designs lay in their suppleness & wearability in spite of their renaissance aesthetics. Printed gold on velvet rather than metallic threads meant they were lightweight but still cosy. I mean…..the collar……. @metmuseum.org #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

Post no one asked for on how to compare bond yields across currencies (more) properly. on.ft.com/48fJTIf

Just finding some Grolier bindings in the stacks

How extraordinary to have the first vial of the vaccine. Interesting, too, that the collecting project began in early March 2020, before the lockdown began. A swift and far-sighted response. Thank you!

✨One to lift the spirits - the magnificent nave at Wells Cathedral taken with my tilt-shift lens 📸. Hard to believe that the 'owl like' scissor arches at the end were built in the mid C14th.

'Im Vorbeigehen' #FotoVorschlag #cityscape #photography Den Haag

For #EpigraphyTuesday an amazing #Roman gold fibula (a decorative pin for fastening garments/a brooch) carrying the Latin inscription VTERE FELIX - use this happily, one of the most common inscriptions on Roman finger rings and fibulae. From Ostrovany, Slovakia, late 3rd c. AD 📷 KHM Wien 🏺

I collect pictures of gate latches. The endless minute variations and human ingenuity appeal to me greatly, and the countless hands that have moved them. This one is between Near and Far Sawrey, Lake District and has a lovely combination of textures between the iron, wooden gate, and stone gatepost.

A courtyard in Delft, c. 1658, by Pieter de Hooch, Dutch Golden Age painter, whose domestic scenes with perspective views reveal subtleties of light & mood; a contemporary of Vermeer, he worked in Delft & Amsterdam, where he lived 1629-1683. National Gallery London

At the Villa Malcontenta this morning

Stone, Torrylin Cairn, Arran. 📷 #photography

Wouldn't mind a garden like this for every library 🌼📚 (Royal Danish Library Garden, Copenhagen)

I’m greatly enjoying the meticulously researched new Crick biography by @matthewcobb.bsky.social published by @profilebooks.bsky.social in November, which I am reviewing for @science.org. It’s set to become the definitive biography of the mercurial, enigmatic and brilliant Francis Crick.

Something special today: Claviorganum of the Day! The only claviorganum still owned by the family that bought it over 250 years ago. Played by John Kitchen, with commentary by Eleanor Smith-Guido, both Committee members of the Friends, with soprano Mhairi Lawson. Part of the ace Lammermuir Festival.

Exposition «John Singer Sargent. Éblouir Paris» à partir du mardi 23 septembre au musée d'Orsay. 🎟️ Réservez dès maintenant votre billet 👉 bit.ly/SargentParis

Gardener of kings & king of gardeners: André Le Nôtre, French landscape architect & principal gardener to Louis XIV, pupil of Mansart, his symmetrical vistas informed the style of Le Grand Siècle; died #OTD 1700. View of Versailles by Pierre Platel c.1668, Château de Versailles

Described by Darwin as ‘the greatest scientific explorer', Alexander von Humboldt, Prussian naturalist, pioneer of biogeography, ‘father of ecology’ born #OTD 1769; his portrait holding manuscript of magnum opus ‘Kosmos’ (pub. 1845-1862), painted by Stieler in 1843. Schloss Charlottenhof, Potsdam

Le Déjeuner de Jambon, 1735, painted by Nicolas Lancret, French Rococo artist, pupil of Gillot & follower of Watteau, known for decorative fêtes galantes and convivial garden scenes, died #OTD 1743. Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly

The Travertin quarry in Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt has a long and unique history as an industrial, geological, and ecological site. Travertine, a type of limestone formed by mineral springs, was quarried here from Roman times, industrial extraction began in the late 19th century. 1/2