Strawberries and Pansies

"Strawberries and pansies", illuminated initial F from an epistolary manuscript, use of the Priory of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, ms. 0437, f. 001r, second half of the 15th century, Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris.

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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

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

Joseph Brodsky

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

Carlos Ruiz Zafón

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

Winston S. Churchill

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

Steven Moffat

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

Alessandro Manzoni

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

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

Martin Luther King, Jr.

You cannot open a book without learning something.

Confucio

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

Marcus Tullius Cicero