HELP WANTED!! @stemma.bsky.social I am working on Folger MS V.b.370, a self-proclaimed 'Rich Cabinet'. The compiler clearly loved giving their MSS ostentatious titles, my favourite being 'My Merchant Ship Laden with Variety of Wares'. Ever come across these MSS titles below? Please get in touch 1/3

Casually using the @stemma.bsky.social dataset as an Early Modern RIP.ie Several epitaphs today, including this one: 'On Mr John Davnant Who died on Thursday, Aprill the 18 1622 being thee Mayor of Oxford. Dedicated to the Worthlesse and Witlesse Townsmen' [Folger MS V.a. 103, f. 22r] #folgerfinds

In code? Is it just how words start to look at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon? [Data from Bodleian MS Add. B. 106, f. 28v]

The incredible double hammer beam angel roof in the Church of St. Mary & All Saints, Willingham, Cambridgeshire 🤩 Dating to the 15th century, or slightly earlier, it was relocated here in the early 17th century, probably from nearby Barnwell Priory.

Was here on choral business. Had NO idea it was Milton and Bunyan's old haunt!!!? ❤️

I love this. It's exactly how the sun makes me feel too. At least for the few minutes before I get overheated and have to retreat into the shade. Hannah Frank, "Sun" (1943) artuk.org/discover/art...

I really hope Edmund thought 'wheeeeeeeee' whenever he wrote those descenders

Just got new team photos for a forthcoming website update. Here's a sneak peek! 🤩

Campaign launched to save Oxford’s oldest cinema

Brutal reading for a Leah 🤣🤣🙈🙈 'Heaven is like Rachel, Faire and Comelie, and courted by All. All desire faire Rachel. Repentance is like Leah, Tender and Blear Eyed, with teares and sorrow. and is neglected by most'.

Embroidered binding for 'The Book of Common Prayer' and bookmark, possibly by Broderers Company, embroidered in London, ca. 1634 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Detail from Crivelli’s Virgin and Child with Saints Francis and Sebastian @nationalgalleryuk.bsky.social #snail @earlymodlancs.bsky.social

Contender for the best first line in early modern poetry?? 'Silly buzzing wanton elf'

When you leave someone on read too long: 'an elegy to the countess of Londonderry supposing her dead by her long silence' 🥶💀

Portrait of an unknown girl wearing a cap, Leendert van der Cooghen, 1653 (Rijksmuseum) The artist was born 9 May 1631 and d. #otd 18 Feb 1681.

How have I never read Anne Southwell's defense of poetry before???? '[Poetry] is the Herald of all Ideas... It is the silke thredd that strings your chayne of pearle; wch being broken, your iewells fall into the rushes; & the more you seeke for it, the more it falls into the dust of oblivion' ❤️

Tulip (Tulipa), Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt, 1596 - 1610 Rijksmuseum

By viva?

We are supporting this conference on Charles Ignatius Sancho, the late-18thC Black British polymath. A recent upsurge in scholarly discoveries makes it timely to bring together international scholars and practitioners for the first time in over 25 years! www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/briti...

Just love seeing this at night. @lincoln.ox.ac.uk chapel (1631; north windows of Old Testament patriarchs and prophets).

Portrait of Paolo Morigia, c. 1592-95. By Fede Galizia, c. 1578– c. 1630 (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, #Milan) She's made a feature of his spectacles, reflecting the room they are sitting in. Morigia, for his part, is writing a poem about the picture she's painting.

The BM catalogue says 'Tortoise, and separate view of a walled, coastal town in the Veneto' for this by Melchior Lorck, mid-16th century. I'm sticking with giant flying tortoise myself.

The zebra in this painting belonged to Shah Abbas of Persia who was born #otd 27 Jan 1571. It was presented to him by the Mughal emperor Jahangir in the early 1620s. (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

#Doodles - a 17thC super-turban from a library in #Rome (JMcC)

17th century woman's stomacher, #English: silk, weft-faced plain weave; embroidered with silk and metal threads in couched, satin and outline stitches. (Art Institute Chicago)

New favourite subtitle!!?? 'Being A fardle of Fancies, or a medley or Musick, stewed in four Ounces of the Oyl of Epigrams'

Southwell again: “What were all objects if there were no “I”?/ Or what were “I”s if darkness all invade?”

Officially a Galway Girl 😁

Very exciting week here at STEMMA as we welcome TWO new teammates: @meghankern.bsky.social and @leahveronese.bsky.social!

Catherine Carey, Lady Knollys #otd Married to Sir Francis Knollys, she was a cousin to Elizabeth I and the Chief Lady of the Queen's Bedchamber, oh & mother of 14 children (Yale Center for British Art B1974.3.22, with #dog and a truly fantastic outfit)

John Donne's Architecture yesterday was a wonderful way to end my second Oxford era (2018-2025). Couldn't have imagined a more perfect morning for a final farewell river run today to St Mary's Iffley. Parting is such sweet sorrow, but excited to become a Galway Girl as of next week!

Fashionable gowns of the 1590s and early 1600s were often worn open in front to reveal a decorative petticoat or forepart underneath. This is #English, made about 1600, of satin embroidered with silk, silver-gilt thread and spangles. (Victoria & Albert Museum)

One of those paintings you see for the first time and think, ‘How have I not seen this before?’ (Or not known that Leamington Spa has a free, council-funded art gallery?) 👍

The secret lives of 17th century #owls (British Museum) Reading by candle light in 1625, and out on a skate date in 1644.

SO excited to be joining the amazing @stemma.bsky.social project in Galway in January. John Donne and miscellany research: two of my favourite things ❤️ As much as I love teaching, I cannot wait to get back to full-time research

Memorial portrait for Moses ter Borch d. 1667 by his brother Gerard ter Borch (II) & sister Gesina ter Borch. Around him are various animals and objects referring to his military career or symbolize loyalty and transience (Rijksmuseum)

'Make of the Signe what ye will; it skills not what it be; never so meane: In the nature of the Signe, there is nothing . . . all is in the thing signified. So it carrie us to a rich Signatum, and worth the finding, what makes it a matter, how meane the Signe be?' (Lancelot Andrewes, Christmas 1618)

Last night was the Yule Feast at @queenscollegeox.bsky.social, so I and @leahveronese.bsky.social finally got to wear our medieval mummers masks! We sang the Boar's Head Carol while trailing after a large papier mache boars head from WWII, and dined on a medieval-inspired menu.

Deadline for abstracts for John Donne's Architecture is this Friday. Looking forward to reading them!

I have the most amazing colleague ❤️✨

The "Vienna" model or sample book, c. 1410-20. An aid for workshops and travelling artists so that they had a stock of motifs & shapes. Silverpoint drawing on paper, maple wood, leather. Dimensions: 9.5 cm × 9 cm. A small thing. (Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien)

✨Book Curses✨ is included in the list of Bewitching Bodleian Bestsellers, so you should buy Book Curses and the 1000 piece puzzle of The World of Frankenstein. Or Book Curses and a Cthulhu pin badge. Or Book Curses and the Edgar Allen Toe socks.

Very excited to be running this conference with Paul Norris. Delighted to have @mcculloughp.bsky.social as our keynote speaker. We can't wait to hear your ideas! Please share widely

Amazing treasures of medieval legal history for a medieval Monday - the Catslechta ˙ (or Cat-sections) - an old Irish legal text on cats (the Senchas Már) which even sets out various categories of cats based on various characteristics or talents. #medievalsky

A page of figure studies by Gesina Ter Borch from 1648 (Rijksmuseum)

Little portraits by visiting students 🥹❤️ Particularly love the observation of the coffee cup in the second one 🤣

💘 💘 in UL Inc.2.B.7.19[4144]

New favourite 18th-century portrait miniature just dropped ❤️ Said to be a lampoon of Madame du Barry, former mistress of Louis XV, representing her as a white peacock #18c

Interesting waste endpapers in this Hebrew edition of Calvin’s Catechism, printed at Geneva in 1554. The binding (see below) would seem to be contemporary & French, which might help someone identify the fragments. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social S817.e.55.6.