natasha patrizia

Graphic showing six cropped woodcut images from the Nuremberg Chronicle depicting various female saints and historic women. A couple of the women hold books, and two hold swords. Another has a sword through her neck. Text alongsude them reads, "Which Nuremberg Chronicle woman are.you? 1 Outwardly calm but inwardly screaming. 2 Haven't slept in a week. 3 In pain but carrying on. 4 So over this nonsense. 5 Off with their heads. 6 Warrior queen." At the bottom, pale text says, "Images from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), Rare Book School, RBS 6734."

Which Nuremberg Chronicle lady are you?

Images from @rarebookschool.bsky.social, RBS 6734.

studying made decidedly more aesthetically pleasing by appropriate stationery picks (Paperblanks' early cartography and ancient illumination collections are decidedly my jam)

Image of a beige-colored vellum page with circular dials attached by thread in the center. Brownish and red ink and faces of animals and a little bird also present

Manuscript volvelle with animal faces and a little bird cut into one of the dials 📚📜

search.library.yale.edu/catalog/9996...

Queer Failure and Early Modern Books Adam Smyth ABSTRACT This article brings together bibliography and queer theory to consider the significance of errors in early modern printed books. Particular attention is paid to the errata narratives that appear in many early modern books, explaining the presence of mistakes and often requesting that the reader correct the errors before proceeding. If bibliography has tended to be norm-setting, queer theory provides a corrective, and a more patient critical mode for considering how historians of the book and literary critics might respond to the various kinds of mistakes that were central to early print. The article builds, in particular, from recent critical work on queer bibliography by Malcolm Noble and Sarah Pyke. KEYWORDS: queer bibliography; errors; errata; history of reading; book history; Sarah Pyke; Malcolm Noble

This, by @adamwithbooks.bsky.social in the most recent HLQ, is really excellent. "Bibliography tends to drain out affect—­ but it needn’t."

Adam Smyth · Slice It Up: Gutenberg’s Great Invention Gutenberg remains unknowable: an implied but not a felt presence. This is true for all but a small number of 15th-...

‘Centuries of printing preceded Gutenberg. As White is careful to describe, Gutenberg was born nine hundred years after printed texts were first produced in China by rubbing paper onto inked, carved woodblocks.’

Adam Smyth (@adamwithbooks.bsky.social):

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

in particular: Guglielmo Libri, mathematical prodigy turned valuable book thief, and Antonio Panizzi, political refugee who fled to England at the suggestion of his friend Ugo Foscolo and became librarian of the British Museum

I've been toying with the idea of doing some deep dives on some curious characters I've learnt about lately

visited my favourite bookstore cat today 🐱📚

[Call for papers] FuMaSt – The Future of Manuscript Studies Fifth edition, Firenze, 5-6 February 2026 (no later than 30 October 2025).
www.irht.cnrs.fr/sites/defaul...

slightly haunted view of my local monastery during my evening walk 🕯️🏰

...I got in!! and ranked quite high!! I'm going to specialize in book history & library studies for the next two years of my life!!

Allie’s hand holding a book in red Morocco, roughly the size of an iPhone +

Allie’s hand holding a small book with a gilt tooled spine, roughly the size of an old iPhone

Allie’s hand holding a tiny little worn out chonky book, roughly the size of an Oreo (if Oreos were square)

Allie’s hand holding the chonky tiny book open to the first page

Sometimes at the end of a long day you need to carve out some time to hang out with tiny books

haven't been very active on here lately but today I passed the written portion of the admissions process of the grad programme I'd like to attend - now for the oral next week 🤞🏻🍀

went in search of the artisanal paper booth (they had Fabriano-made samples) but instead stumbled across this very nifty display at my local medieval fair!

The full LGBTQIA+ Book History Bibliography is here 🏳️‍🌈!!! 650+ items of LGBTQIA+ #BookHistory!!
Check out the intro to see how we made it, the primary bibliography, the article appendix, and the absolutely magnificent zine!!! From monographs to zines, you'll find it here!
sharpweb.org/sharpnews/20...

How to become a printer's apprentice in 1743. A boy is led by Carmenta, a Roman goddess who created the alphabet, up steps of a temple where the goddess Typographia awaits. Each step represents a skill that must be mastered, such as reading, writing, foreign languages, declensions, conjugation. 1/2

Book opened to highly illustrative title page

Close up of highly-illustrative page of text

Close up image of the word "Christ" woven from silk

Close up image of silk fibers forming the letter C

Have you ever seen a book made entirely of silk? One item getting a lot of reading room attention recently is this "Livre de Prières." This book was manufactured with the Jacquard process, which relied on perforated punch cards to operate a loom, and is considered a precursor to early programming.

nothing quite as anxiety-inducing as emailing academic figures you admire for advice

Photograph of lots of old books and a bust.

Library of the Plantin–Moretus Museum in Antwerp. #BookWormSat

Interior of the Bodleian Library, 1675 - I'm afraid the academic looking out of the window on the top right is ... me (Rijksmuseum)

the novel in question, a little worse for wear given how much I've been toting it around in this last week

slowly but surely getting on with my summer study programme 📖

in other news, I have finished my read-through of the first text for grad school admissions (principles and issues in libraries and librarianship) and am close to finishing the second (history of latin script), hoping to begin the third (on the history of national administrations) in the coming days

reading a novel that is a jaw-droppingly satiric and scathing criticism of how humanities faculties function in my home country and unsure if I'm finding it more compelling for how well it's written or horrifying for its plausibilities

No one warns you how much academia is just emailing people you’re scared of

a patron returned this book during my library shift yesterday, how could I not check it out out of curiosity? (the Voynich obsession is real)

How to collate an early printed book This mini series by Dr Sian Witherden (Rare books and manuscripts specialist) explains how to collate early printed books. These blog posts work through several practical examples from the Bodleian…

Ever wished someone would sit down and explain how to collate an early printed book? The marvellous ‪‬@sianwitherden.bsky.social has done exactly that in a brand new series for Teachable Features: teachingthecodex.com/how-to-colla... #bookhistory #incunabula #teachingcodex

🚨Call for Papers: The 18th St Andrews/USTC Book History Conference on 'Print and Education' will take place 18–20 June 2026.

👉 Further details here: www.ustc.ac.uk/conference

📅 Application deadline: 12 December 2025

📖 We look forward to receiving your proposals!

#CfP #bookhistory #skystorians