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).

Received fantastic training last Friday from my esteemed colleague Kristine Rose-Beers, Head of Conservation and Heritage at Cambridge University Library, on how to handle and measure oracle bones carefully in a super professional way. So much to learn from colleagues with various expertise in our library.

Doom & gloom from the #eclipse in 1715, predicted by Edmund Halley. Cambridge UL Special Collections 7350.d.138.

Shooting at the Librarian? Read all about Henry Bradshaw's near miss specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=27974

Nice find Cambridge UL Special Collections this week, long unnoticed. A breviary ( #Venice , 1600) apparently held by Eugene Egan (aka Owen McEgan - Catholic apostolic priest involved in the Nine Years’ War) at the moment of his murder by the English in 1603. A contemporary note inside (1/2) …

A new exhibition has landed in our Centre & Library!

Explore these brilliant collages of photo-copied Zambian archival material from the Royal Commonwealth Society Collection held at Cambridge University Library.

The workshop was put on by Cambridge Visual Culture fellows Sana & Kerstin.

🔗 in bio for more!

Some tipsy seventeenth-century printing in the ‘Illustrium Hollandiæ et Westfrisiæ ordinum Alma Academia Leidensis’ (Leiden, 1614). Thanks for Cambridge University Library Conservator Rachel for pointing it out! Cambridge University LibrarySpecColl LE.5.26.