Columbo McGraw
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columbomcgraw.bsky.social
Columbo McGraw
@columbomcgraw.bsky.social
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Inquisitive mind on history, books, libraries and art 🔎📚✨
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Reposted by Columbo McGraw
historytoday.com
As the #medieval book trade declined, Oxford scribes had to turn their hands to other crafts to get by.

🔓 Alison Ray’s new History Matters is free for 7 days

www.historytoday.com/archive/hist...
How Medieval Scribes Balanced the Books
www.historytoday.com
November 6, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Reposted by Columbo McGraw
book-historia.bsky.social
🚨PRINTER’S HAT SPOTTED🚨
An engraving of a variety of people, a man in the foreground wearing a paper hat
September 15, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Columbo McGraw
ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social
University of Oxford chemists have solved a decades-old archaeological mystery and identified a honey offering in bronze jars from a 6th century BCE Greek shrine close to Pompeii.

Read more about the discovery here ⬇️
www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-07...

@ox.ac.uk @oxfordchemistry.bsky.social
A hydria vessel on display at the Ashmolean Museum in 2019 alongside a Perspex box containing the residue. Next to this is an image of a smaller sample from the residue.
July 31, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Reposted by Columbo McGraw
dbellingradt.bsky.social
#MediaMocking in the past. Imagine a group of pamphleteers engaged in publishing pro and contra Flugpublizistik. At some point, this Hamburg-based printer had an idea. In order to support the mocking intention of this pamphlet he ...

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#bookhistory #earlymodern
Page from the pamphlet "Das verwimmerte Ergo" (VD17 23:638896N) featuring the menationed free space.
May 2, 2024 at 11:39 AM
Reposted by Columbo McGraw
bryonycoombs.bsky.social
In progress:
bryonycoombs.com/2025/06/10/w...
Working With Historic Pigments
‘Paintings were valued because of the materials that they contained. But they were also valued because of the mysterious ways craftsmen could convert raw materials into something with fateful…
bryonycoombs.com
June 11, 2025 at 6:21 AM
Reposted by Columbo McGraw
mattfirth.bsky.social
I'm always struck by he glorious subtlety of a British Museum stamp, in this case adorning a 12th c. copy of Osbern's Vita Dunstani. At least Dunstan's looking good...
Folio 1 v of a 12th c., Canterbury copy of Osbern's Vita Dunstani, with a modern red 'Museum Britanicum' stamp smack in the middle of the medieval text. Illuminated letter D (in DIXIMUS) with St Dunstan placidly abusing the devil's nose with a pair of tongs.
June 10, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Reposted by Columbo McGraw
cardiffunilib.bsky.social
'The magic of manicules'. More pointing fingers from the margins of Cardiff’s rare books in our Special Collections and Archives: scolarcardiff.wordpress.com/2025/06/03/t...
The magic of manicules: more pointing fingers from the margins of Cardiff’s rare books
As we continue to explore and catalogue Cardiff University’s extensive collections of rare books, we are encountering more and more manicules in the margins. These wonderful little symbols in…
scolarcardiff.wordpress.com
June 6, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Reposted by Columbo McGraw
dbellingradt.bsky.social
Early Modern Europe was a paper age - a first period of paper usages. Especially managing information became a paper business as the painting "The Lawyer's Office" (1628) from Pieter de Bloot highlights. (Rijksmuseum: t1p.de/1awb). A thread for #paperhistory, and #bookhistory #skystorians

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The inside of an early modern lawyer's office: people waiting in line, lots of paper products on the floor, on the desks, at the walls. Highlighted are the details of this thread The inside of an early modern lawyer's office: people waiting in line, lots of paper products on the floor, on the desks, at the walls.
September 12, 2024 at 7:38 PM