Three successful oracle bone sessions Cambridge University Library. Grateful to Prof. Roel Sterckx FAMES_Cambridge for organizing and to Peichao Qin for expert instructions. Thanks to colleagues at the Chinese Section, Conservation, and Cambridge University LibrarySpecColl for their support. Attendees were highly engaged.

For St Mark’s Day - patron saint of #Venice - here he is with his rather camp lion in the Book of Cerne, an early ninth-century prayer book made in Mercia & now
Cambridge UL Special Collections (MS Ll.1.10). #StMark #SanMarco

Presenting the improved provenance index to @theul's post-1500 printed books, now with links to iDiscover! Includes over 9,000 entries, with more to come. Additional information, corrections, etc. welcome. More at lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/de…

Great workshop today with Liz Emrich-Rouge on early twentieth-century political imagery, using books from across Cambridge University Library’s collections. Organised with Cambridge Visual Culture.

St George and the dragon, from a book of magic spells and incantations written in Syriac (Northern Iraq?, 18th century?). Given to Cambridge UL Special Collections in 1891 by University Librarian Francis Jenkinson. MS Add. 3086. #StGeorge sDay #StGeorge

An eighteenth-century pocket globe for #EarthDay2024
View a 3D model here: cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ORCS-0…
ORCS.1.01

Catalogued a new #incunable Cambridge UL Special Collections today: Francis of Meyronnes’ sermons ( #Venice , January 1491/2). It escaped to Germany early on (binding tools from Esslingen - lovely acorns) & was soon at the Franciscan convent at Villingen; perhaps initials LCV relate to this. (1/2)

Flowers on the outside of Cambridge University Library’s copy of the ‘Flora Danica’ (Copenhagen, 1766 [i.e. 1761]-1883). S370.a.76.1-

Today marks the 200th anniversary of Byron’s death in 1824. A few years later his library was sold. We have a copy of the sale catalogue which is an interesting read!

Cambridge UL Special Collections
Munby.c.131(8).

Service Update: please note that we'll be unable to provide a Special Collections fetching service on Saturday 20 & 27 April, & 4, 11, 18 and 25 of May. The Manuscripts Reading Room will be open as usual from 9.30am to 4:30pm for readers to consult pre-ordered material.

Hundreds of nineteenth-century book auction catalogues @theul now catalogued & available! Read more here: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=28022

It’s International Bat Appreciation Day! Here are some thirteenth-century bats from one of our bestiaries (a compendium of beasts!), made in London c. 1230. MS Kk.4.25.
Check out the original in the CambridgeDigitalLib :cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-KK-000…

Our latest blog explores the recently acquired archive of Alan Howard, inventor of the Cambridge diet! Read more here: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=28107

Cambridge University Library has recently acquired, with the generous support of the Friends of the National Libraries (FNL), a unique piece of eighteenth-century satirical French printing presenting the popular concept of the ‘world turned upside down’. Find out more here: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=27918

Love the immensely crudely coloured #woodcuts in this copy of ‘The rosarye of our lady in englysshe, with many goodly petycions dyrect to her’ (probably printed in Antwerp by Willem Vorsterman c. 1525). The cuts are just a couple of inches tall. Cambridge UL Special Collections SSS.20.13(2).

Medieval people who informally practised medicine were called “leeches”. Little is known about them but we have uncovered one of their names in a 15C book of medical recipes using multi-spectral imaging. Read more in our new #CuriousCures blogpost:

specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=27848

Do you want to learn about healing sore eyes with herbs and urine, conjuring demons, and the soul’s journey after death? Then read our #CuriousCures blogpost on a newly digitised fifteenth-century book of Middle English medical recipes!

specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=27848

This medieval English book of medical recipes looks like it has emerged from a time-capsule. In our new #CuriousCures blogpost we explore how careful conservation work has allowed us to study its contents. Read all about it here:

specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=27848

This Buttercup looks so much like a pressed flower found in a book, but is actually an example of ‘nature printing’ from original plant specimens. From Cambridge University Library’s wonderful copy of Johann Hieronymus Kniphof’s ‘Botanica in originali seu herbarium vivum’ (1757-64). S370.a.75.1-4 💚

Great to have participants in the Cambridge Digital Humanities data school here today looking at collections involved in recent digital projects & CambridgeDigitalLib. The 7thC Codex Zacynthius palimpsest; drawings by Richarda & Cristabel Airy; imagery of John Baskerville’s punches (@Baskerville1707).