#parchment-and-ink-analysis

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Arts
fromArtnet News
1 day ago

Were the Popes Art History's Ultimate Collectors? | Artnet News

Pope Urban VIII's patronage of Gian Lorenzo Bernini significantly shaped Baroque art and architecture in Rome during the 17th century.
History
fromMedievalists.net
5 days ago

New Medieval Books: Light on Darkness - Medievalists.net

Liturgy is central to Western cultural history, rich in artistic expression and emotional depth, influencing society for over a thousand years.
Paris food
fromGothamist
1 week ago

Bic pen heirs say their Renaissance masterpiece was stolen. Did the chauffeur do it?

The Bich brothers are suing to reclaim a stolen 15th-century painting that disappeared from their family's apartment 20 years ago.
fromMedievalists.net
6 days ago

Who Lies in Winchester's Medieval Mortuary Chests? - Medievalists.net

This project demonstrates the combined power of science, the study of human remains and historical research to discover new information about the six mortuary chests and their occupants which would not have been available to us a generation ago.
History
Arts
fromArtnet News
1 week ago

Who Created the Book of Kells? A Master Craftsman Takes on the Mystery

New evidence suggests the Book of Kells may originate from Portmahomack, challenging the long-held theory of its creation at Iona.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 week ago

Scientists Confirm Remains of Medieval Emperor Otto the Great - Medievalists.net

Emperor Otto the Great's identity has been confirmed through scientific research, including DNA analysis, after centuries of uncertainty.
Berlin music
fromGothamist
2 weeks ago

Mozart's childhood violin and original manuscripts come to the Morgan Library

Mozart's personal belongings, including the clavichord used to compose 'The Magic Flute' and his childhood violin, are exhibited at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan for the first time in the United States.
Books
fromOpen Culture
3 weeks ago

How to Rescue a Wet, Damaged Book: A Handy Visual Primer

Syracuse University Libraries provides practical tips for salvaging water-damaged books through a visual guide with both intuitive and specialized restoration techniques.
Higher education
fromHarvard Gazette
3 weeks ago

Like seeing art of Roman chapels in technicolor for first time - Harvard Gazette

Students learned centuries-old stucco sculpting techniques through hands-on practice, gaining deeper understanding of Renaissance and Baroque artists' material choices and creative processes.
fromArtnet News
2 weeks ago

Just How Much Did Pompeii's Prized Blue Paint Cost? | Artnet News

In the Roman Empire, Egyptian blue was typically traded in the form of small pellets, which were ground into a useable powder, and researchers estimate between six and 10 pounds were used to coat the Blue Room. Using prices quoted by Pliny the Elder (who died in nearby Stabiae during the eruption), the researchers estimate this much paint would have cost 93 to 168 denarii, perhaps equivalent more than 1,000 loaves of bread or 90 percent of a soldier's annual salary.
Arts
#archimedes-palimpsest
fromwww.thehistoryblog.com
3 weeks ago
History

Page from Archimedes Palimpsest rediscovered in Blois

A lost page from the Archimedes Palimpsest, a 10th-century Byzantine manuscript containing mathematical treatises, was rediscovered at a French museum after being missing for decades.
fromwww.scientificamerican.com
3 weeks ago
History

Long-lost page of Archimedes' writings rediscovered in France

Scientists recovered a missing page from the Archimedes Palimpsest, a 10th-century medieval manuscript containing writings from the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes.
OMG science
fromNature
1 month ago

Daily briefing: Galileo's notes discovered in the margins of an ancient book

Tectonic plates moved 3.3 billion years ago with higher oxygen levels; Galileo's annotations discovered in 400-year-old Ptolemy text; rotator cuff degeneration common in older adults regardless of symptoms.
Arts
fromArtnet News
2 weeks ago

El Greco Painting Found Hidden Beneath a Forgery in the Vatican

A previously hidden El Greco painting titled The Redeemer from the 1590s was discovered in the Vatican after restorers removed a forged overpainting that had obscured the original work.
Medicine
fromArs Technica
1 month ago

What we can learn from scientific analysis of Renaissance recipes

16th-century people used scientific experimentation to create personalized home remedies, leaving protein traces on medical manuals that researchers now analyze to understand Renaissance knowledge construction.
fromMedievalists.net
3 weeks ago

New Medieval Books: Approaching Records of the Household and Wardrobe - Medievalists.net

The Household and Wardrobe Accounts are English records that document the daily needs of the king and his family. This book serves as a guide to these sources, showing how they can be used and what valuable insights they offer into medieval government.
History
Books
fromianVisits
1 month ago

New exhibition explores how early printing developed into readable books

William Caxton revolutionized English book printing in the late 15th century, transforming books from elite luxury items into affordable, widely accessible products through rapid technological advancement.
History
fromMedievalists.net
3 weeks ago

New Medieval Books: Widow City - Medievalists.net

Late medieval Italian widows mourned their spouses and navigated their lives through religious or secular paths, evolving from allegorical subjects to prominent authors who reshaped public discourse on widowed identity.
Arts
fromColossal
3 weeks ago

You'll Need a Magnifying Glass to Read Some of the World's Smallest Books at the V&A

Queen Mary's Dolls' House at Windsor Castle contains nearly 600 miniature books designed by leading craftspeople, representing a remarkable collection of scaled literary works from the early 20th century.
#medieval-history
Arts
fromThe Art Newspaper - International art news and events
3 weeks ago

'It has nothing to do with Michelangelo': expert wades in on painting newly attributed to Renaissance master

Belgian art historian Michel Draguet claims to have discovered a Michelangelo painting from the 1540s, but leading Renaissance experts dispute the attribution based on artistic style analysis.
#medieval-manuscripts
Arts
fromArtnet News
1 month ago

Sistine Chapel Mural Restoration Tackles Layers of Sweaty Residue

Vatican conservators are removing dried sweat deposits from Michelangelo's Last Judgement fresco to restore its original vibrant colors obscured by a white film caused by daily tourist condensation.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

Dreaming of Owning a Medieval Artefact? Here's Your Chance - Medievalists.net

TimeLine Auctions' March 3 online sale features hundreds of medieval historical objects including a 13th-century Limoges cross, 1224 Chinese armor, Viking silver mount, and Anglo-Saxon brooch.
fromwww.scientificamerican.com
2 months ago

The search for Leonardo da Vinci's DNAhow modern forensic science is trying to crack a 500-year-old puzzle

About ten years ago researchers across a wide range of disciplines, from forensic science and genetics to art history, got together with the goal of finding the Renaissance artist's DNA. Da Vinci had no children, and his remains were disturbed during the French Revolution. The hope is that uncovering his DNA could open the door to a number of discoveries, including new tools for authenticating artwork and potential clues about da Vinci's uncanny way of seeing the world.
Science
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

Joshua O'Driscoll Named Head of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the Morgan - Medievalists.net

Dr. Joshua O'Driscoll appointed as Melvin R. Seiden Curator and Department Head of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the Morgan Library & Museum, overseeing one of the world's most significant illuminated manuscript collections.
fromOpen Culture
1 month ago

The Rohonc Codex: Hungary's Mysterious Manuscript That No One Can Read

Image by Klaus Schmeh, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons Mag­yar, which is spo­ken and writ­ten in Hun­gary, ranks among the hard­est Euro­pean lan­guages to learn. (The U.S. For­eign Ser­vice Insti­tute puts it in the sec­ond-to-high­est lev­el, accom­pa­nied by the dread­ed aster­isk label­ing it as "usu­al­ly more dif­fi­cult than oth­er lan­guages in the same cat­e­go­ry.") But once you mas­ter its vow­el har­mo­ny sys­tem, its def­i­nite and indef­i­nite con­ju­ga­tion, and its eigh­teen gram­mat­i­cal cas­es, among oth­er noto­ri­ous fea­tures, you can final­ly enjoy the work of writ­ers like Nobel Lau­re­ates Imre Kertész and Lás­zló Krasz­na­horkai in the orig­i­nal. Alas, no degree of mas­tery will be much help if you want to under­stand a much old­er - and, in its way, much more noto­ri­ous - Hun­gar­i­an text, the Rohonc Codex.
Books
fromwww.thehistoryblog.com
1 month ago

Medieval painted panels found beneath Toledo house

A group of polychrome wood panels discovered under the floorboards of a house in Toledo in 2018 are going on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. They were found during construction of a hotel planned to go up over several buildings in the Bajada del Pozo Amargo street next to Toldeo's Cathedral. They had been stripped from their original location on the upper part of the walls of a quadrangular hall and reused as raw carpentry material in the house's subfloor.
History
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

AI analysis casts doubt on Van Eyck paintings in Italian and US museums

An analysis of two paintings in museums in the US and Italy by the 15th-century Flemish artist Jan van Eyck has raised a profound question: what if neither were by Van Eyck? Saint Francis of Assisi Receiving the Stigmata, the name given to near-identical unsigned paintings hanging in the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Royal Museums of Turin, represent two of the small number of surviving works by one of western art's greatest masters, revered for his naturalistic portraits and religious subjects.
Arts
fromOpen Culture
1 month ago

Cats in Medieval Manuscripts & Paintings

Renais­sance artist Albrecht Dür­er (1471-1528) nev­er saw a rhi­no him­self, but by rely­ing on eye­wit­ness descrip­tions of the one King Manuel I of Por­tu­gal intend­ed as a gift to the Pope, he man­aged to ren­der a fair­ly real­is­tic one, all things con­sid­ered.
Arts
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

Rules of a Medieval Library - Medievalists.net

When universities began to emerge in Europe during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they soon became important centres of knowledge. Their libraries could hold hundreds of books, and many of the most valuable volumes were kept under close control - sometimes even chained to desks. We have few details about how medieval university libraries operated, but a revealing set of rubric headings survives from the University of Angers in western France.
History
Arts
fromwww.independent.co.uk
2 months ago

Bayeux tapestry at risk from British Museum vanity project', expert says

Experts warn the Bayeux Tapestry is too fragile to risk transporting from Normandy to the British Museum because movement and environmental changes could cause irreplaceable damage.
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

New Medieval Books: Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript - Medievalists.net

This is a book about a book: the small, cropped, somewhat ragged but brightly illustrated volume now known formally, and rather forbiddingly, as British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x/2. The fame and beauty of its four Middle English poems have given it sobriquets beyond the shelfmark, however, which are more familiar and intimate: it is also the Gawain-Manuscript or, as I will call it, the Pearl-Manuscript.
History
Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 month ago

When Artists Lose Their Archives

An artist lost a storage unit and later discovered parts of their work were sold online without notification, stripping authorship and meaning.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

Previously Unknown Medieval Chronicle Discovered - Medievalists.net

A previously unknown 8th-century Maronite chronicle (dated 712–13 CE) offers early Christian perspective on Arab-Islamic expansion and Late Antique religious-political change.
Arts
fromHyperallergic
2 months ago

A Millennia-Long Fascination With Armor

The Worcester Art Museum's reopened armor galleries present global armor traditions, challenging medieval European romanticism and showcasing one of the nation's largest arms-and-armor collections.
History
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

Reading in Byzantium: Literacy, Books, and a World of Texts - Medievalists.net

Byzantine reading was communal and performative, woven into religious, educational, and administrative life while preserving classical learning within a Christian intellectual framework.
Arts
fromBig Think
2 months ago

The last masters: The international effort to preserve an ancient craft

Intangible cultural heritage like traditional Damascus steelmaking can vanish when supporting material and social conditions disappear, prompting international safeguarding efforts.
History
fromOpen Culture
1 month ago

The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discover the Secrets of the Bible's Oldest and Strangest Texts

Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest known biblical manuscripts, diverse texts (biblical, apocryphal, sectarian, unknown) that complicated but did not completely upend understanding of Christianity.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

Medieval manuscript lost in World War II returns to Poland - Medievalists.net

A 12th-century Cistercian manuscript looted during World War II has been returned from Yale University to the Republic of Poland.
History
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

New Medieval Books: Impossible Recovery - Medievalists.net

Julian of Norwich's illness and visions show how sickness and revelation intertwine, shaping personal recovery and the subsequent expression and theorization of experience.
History
fromianVisits
2 months ago

2m heritage funding will make London's papyrus archive easier to visit

A £2 million National Lottery Heritage Fund grant will modernize the Egypt Exploration Society's London headquarters, protecting irreplaceable papyri collections and expanding public access.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

New Medieval Books: Ipomedon - Medievalists.net

A twelfth-century Anglo-French romance about Ipomedon, an incognito prince tested by adventures, tournaments, and ironic narration exploring chivalry, humour, and social values.
History
fromwww.thehistoryblog.com
2 months ago

Roman wooden writing tablets from Belgium deciphered

Deciphered writing on Roman wooden wax tablets from Tongeren reveals new personal names and rare high-ranking officials, enriching knowledge of the city’s Roman-period inhabitants.
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

New Medieval Books: The Forsaken 14th Century - Medievalists.net

In this volume, the authors aim to provide a truly global overview of the 14 century, with each region given approximately the same space. It is obviously impossible to cover every event in every country of the world in a single volume, just as you would not be able to visit every city in every country if you traveled around the world for a year.
History
History
fromwww.thehistoryblog.com
1 month ago

17th c. panel returned to church 30 years after it was stolen

A stolen 17th-century memorial panel from a Hertfordshire church was recovered and returned after 30 years through a keen Australian heraldry enthusiast.
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

New Medieval Books: Interconnected Traditions - Medievalists.net

This open-access book brings together more than thirty essays on languages and the ways they develop, interact, and influence one another. Its main focus is the Middle East, where Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic long existed side by side and often overlapped in everyday use, scholarship, and culture. In line with Geoffrey (Khan)'s commitment to the maximally accessible dissemination of research, this Festschrift has been published in both open-access digital editions and affordable printed formats.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

10 Medieval Studies' Articles Published Last Month - Medievalists.net

In this paper we investigate whether infant and childhood feeding practices influenced the imbalanced adult sex ratio reported in medieval Europe from historical and osteological evidence. First, we examine hypotheses for the observed imbalanced sex ratios in Europe and the evidence presented to support these hypotheses. We then use stable isotope analysis (δ13C and δ15N) of incremental dentine in 64 first molars from adults at three medieval sites (Aulla, Badia Pozzeveri, and Montescudaio) in north-western Tuscany (11th-15th c. CE).
History
History
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

New Medieval Books: The Horse in History - Medievalists.net

Eleven studies examine horse equipment, training, folklore, and material culture across time and Europe, emphasizing archaeological evidence and diverse methodological approaches.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

New Medieval Books: The Rose, the Bastard and the Saint King - Medievalists.net

The 1471 Lancastrian siege of London aimed to free captive Henry VI; a Kent rebellion prompted Edward IV to order Henry's execution to secure authority.
History
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

Early Medieval Church in Rome Draws Attention After Fresco Restoration - Medievalists.net

San Lorenzo in Lucina, a medieval church, drew renewed attention after conservation of a modern fresco whose figure was likened to Italy's PM Giorgia Meloni.
History
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

Medieval Hebrew Prayerbook Could Fetch $7 Million at Auction - Medievalists.net

The 1415 Rothschild Vienna Mahzor, a richly illuminated Ashkenazi High Holiday prayerbook, will be auctioned at Sotheby's with an estimated $5–7 million.
History
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

10 Medieval Studies' Articles Published Last Month - Medievalists.net

Local populations in Anatolia used spolia to assert cultural continuity with the ancient and Byzantine past, challenging exclusive Western claims to that heritage.
History
fromianVisits
1 month ago

From cassocks to coins: A brief history of Archbishops in Lambeth Palace's library

Lambeth Palace Library exhibits objects, documents, regalia, coins, and ceremonial items illustrating past Archbishops, their offices, privileges, and material culture.
fromMedievalists.net
2 months ago

New Medieval Books: Old High German Poetry - Medievalists.net

The translations offered are intended to keep as close to the originals as possible in line for line renderings, while conveying at the same time some indication at least of the poetic form. This is, of course, an entirely hubristic aim, and it is either a help (by permitting a certain freedom of approach) or an additional hindrance that, as noted, many of the texts survive in a somewhat parlous state.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

New Medieval Books: A Crusade Against the Turks as a Means of Reforming the Church - Medievalists.net

This project will focus on the Camaldolese hermits' proposal for achieving what they considered to be the most crucial task in the repair of the church, eliminating Islam and all Muslims. Our study will begin with an examination of the recipient of the Libellus, Giovanni de' Medici, who would become Pope Leo X. Next will be an exploration into the backgrounds of Paolo Giustiniani and Pietro Querini,
History
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

New Medieval Books: Blessed Mary and the Monks of England - Medievalists.net

English Benedictine and Cistercian monks (1000–1215) shaped medieval Mariology by deepening Marian devotion, theological reflection, and using Mary as a model for Christian life.
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