Songbird and Blossoms

Illumination from the manuscript "QUINTE CURSE RUFFE. Des Fais du grant Alexandre ", ms. Français 257, f. 114v, 15th century, Bibliothèque nationale de France. Département des manuscrits, Paris.

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Illumination from the manuscript "Tresample description de toute la Terre Saincte", ms. Royal…

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15 January 2021 Close neighbors

Illumination from a Book of Hours (Paris), ms. Latin MS 164, f. 81r,…

About Me

Your virtual eye on illuminated manuscripts, rare books, and the stories behind them.
By Franco Cosimo Panini Editore.

FoliaFocus

DANCE DANCE DANCE: the Dancing Mania and other kinds of mass hysteria 29 February 2020
UFOs: Unveiling Fortuna’s Orb 2 July 2019
SAY CHEESE! Cheesemaking in the Middle Ages 4 June 2019
Between Leonardo and Hildegard: The Universal Man 2 May 2019
Timur the Great 9 April 2019

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

Joseph Brodsky

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

You cannot open a book without learning something.

Confucio

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

Winston S. Churchill

If you don't know history, then you don't know anything. You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree.

Michael Crichton

Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

History is a war against time, for it brings back to life deeds and heroes of the past.

Alessandro Manzoni

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

We're all stories, in the end. Just make it a good one.

Steven Moffat