heaveninawildflower:

Boethius, De musica, f.43v, (211 x 144 mm), 12th century, Alexander Turnbull Library, MSR-05. by National Library NZ on The Commons on Flickr.

‘This is a manuscript about the theory of music. It was copied probably in England at Christ Church, Canterbury, in the second quarter of the twelfth century. Its main focus is the mathematical basis of music, and the beautifully-drawn diagrams with their graceful arches illustrate the mathematical ratios which produce the various intervals in the musical scale. Sometimes these diagrams take on animal forms such as here.

Boethius, the author of this work, was born about 480 into an aristocratic Roman family. He wrote a number of works but his treatise on music, De musica, was one of his earliest, written probably in the first decade of the sixth century’.
Image and text - National Library NZ

uispeccoll:

An Excellent Diet Drink for ye Evill?  Is that how you read that?  Try your hand at transcribing this page or others from the Frances Smith Medical Recipe Book, 1704.  http://diyhistory.lib.uiowa.edu/transcribe/scripto/transcribe/1712/46715

Excerpt from Dracula manuscript, Rosenbach Museum and Library

I share a birthday with this influential Irish author (who is also the subject of the Google Doodle today), so I thought I’d share this.  The Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia holds Stoker’s notes for his famous (and infamous) novel — I’m pretty sure it has to be the institution described at the very end of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian under another name.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s signature throughout the years, ages 5 to 21. 

Does anyone know where this document is held?  I tried going through the finding aid for the F. Scott Fitzgerald Papers at Princeton but there are broken links!  All the search-by-image results on Google are bringing me back to Tumblr.

(Insert diatribe about the necessity of tagging and citing things when you post them on Tumblr.  Metadata isn’t hard, you guys.)

And so, I present this both as a very interesting archival document and an example of how to frustrate archivists and inquiring minds on Tumblr.  Any ideas?

Edit, 5 October 2012:  Thank you to lecieltumultueux for locating the original source!  The autograph page is published in The Romantic Egoists:  A Pictorial Autobiography from the Scrapbooks and Albums of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.  The original is housed at Princeton University.

(Source: tiger-milk)

crookedindifference:

Leonardo da Vinci (1511)

awesomearchives:

collective-history:

The term Timbuktu Manuscripts applies to 700,000 medieval African documents, ranging from scholarly works to short letters, that have been preserved by private households in Timbuktu. The manuscripts were passed down in Timbuktu families and are mostly in poor condition. Some of the manuscripts date back to the 13th century.

With the demise of Arabic education in Mali under French colonial rule, appreciation for the medieval manuscripts declined in Timbuktu, and many were being sold off.

The majority of Manuscripts are in Arabic or in African languages written in Arabic script or Africanized versions of the Arabic alphabets, collectively called “Ajami script”. The written local languages in the manuscripts include Songhay and Tamasheq. These manuscripts deal with a wide variety of subjects including mathematics, science, philosophy, Islam, astronomy, law and even contracts.

via

It is so hard to find information on book history in Africa outside of Egypt. 

awesomearchives:

700-year-old letter belonging to William Wallace to go on display

In January, Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop announced the precious document’s return to Scotland.

Ms Hyslop said: “It is one of the few surviving artefacts with a direct link to William Wallace and a fascinating fragment of our nation’s history. To have it here in Scotland, where it can be viewed by the Scottish public, is very significant indeed.”

Also on show is the Lubeck letter, the only surviving document which was issued by Wallace.

The letter, written in Latin, was written after his victory at the Battle of Stirling Bridge to inform European trading partners that Scottish ports were open for business again.

Both documents are part of the free exhibition, Special Delivery: The William Wallace Letters, on at Holyrood until the end of August.

The History Channel website has more information about the history of this letter and of William Wallace.  And for what it’s worth, the “Holyrood” of the exhibition—which must be brief because of the letters’ age and fragility—is Scottish Parliament, not Holyrood Palace, which is basically across the street.  

Manuscript of a Mauritanian Qur’an, Northwest Africa, Mauritania, 18th century

(Source: roxygen)

awesomearchives:

Carl Sagan’s reading list.

Sagan’s papers were recently donated to the Library of Congress by Seth MacFarlane. 

Wait…hold up.  Carl Sagan’s papers were owned by Seth MacFarlane?