"Those unharnessed runnersfrom glen to glen!Nobody tamesthat royal blood, each one aloofon its rightful summit,antlered, watchful.Imagine them, the stag of high Slieve Felim,the stag of the steep Fews,the […]
A Moment With Sweeney Astray and The Stags Read More »
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could publish our novels with such lovely marginalia? There is something so unexpectedly tender about these two snails meeting and kissing in the margin. Marginalia art has a vital life of its own — existing side by side with text but not necessarily commenting on the reader. It's the
Marginalia: Kissing Snails Read More »
Above is a curious and captivating of two nude jousters — male and female(?) — on snails. This is from the Baldus de Ubaldis. Lectura super Institutionibus. 1480-1481. The best part of this image is that it remains an utter mystery as to what sort of allagorical or rhetorical meaning they were trying to express by
Jousting Snails: A Medieval Martial Art Read More »
Konrad Kyeser, Bellifortis, Germany 15th century (Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 1360, fol. 4v)
Sunday Marginalia: The Four Winds Read More »
I am not at all sure what the artist was thinking when he added this little marginal painting in a manuscript, but I love it. An angry oyster protecting a pearl? unwilling to be eaten? or just ornery from a life time of an irritating parasite giving him a silvery ulcer. Maybe a painter frustrated
What Is An Angry Oyster? Read More »
I have been madly in love with the recent offerings of hedgehog marginalia from Medieval Animal Data Network. These adorable looking creatures, are often rendered in the rich golden and red hues of fall, and harvesting grapes (despoiling the vineyards) using their spines like cocktail toothpicks. But most wonderful of all…a group of artists got
In Praise of the Hedgehog Read More »
Penelope Writes to Odysseus I am still in awe of these amazing little Medieval illustrations of the classical Greek and Latin heroines of Ovid writing imaginary epistles. Ovid’s work was translated into French by poet Octavien de Saint-Gelais, and it so delighted Louise of Savoy (1476-1531), mother of the future king Francis I of France,
When Heroines Write Their Own Stories Read More »
