FEATHER UPDATE! Now identified as coming from a rooster.

Paper sheet with four different type settings of pages in liturgical books printed in black and red

Detail of two pages in different type but of the same text of a diurnum with handwritten notes below

Detail of a page of a breviary with a handwritten note below

Planned some cataloguing today, but didn’t expect to (re)discover this uncatalogued early 17th‑century specimen sheet comparing the same liturgical text in different type setting, with annotations noting the number of sheets required with that specific type and corresponding cost for printing!

Detail of an inscription, ms words “bibliotheca” and “Ecclesia[e]”. “N 18” this has been crossed out to 27. Below this, in a different hand, “Anno 1664”.

🎵🎵18 early books sitting on a wall, and if one of those books should accidentally fall 🎵🎵

Thanks everyone for your help. One fellow bskyer suggested I talk to the fly-tying community, and another recommended the featherbase.info website. I indirectly found a fisher who thought it could work for making flies, & suggested the bird is a plover. Featherbase indicates it might indeed be.

Book bound in marbled paper over boards, paper label, ties dangling from outer margins of covers.

Some properly dangling alum-tawed skin ties. These have often been cut off or similar from old books.

Manuscript border made up of black and gold flourishes, to a page of text in black and gold manuscript. Photo of top right-hand corner.

Flourishing here.

Thank you Simon, there may be something there, I will have a look. Following suggestion here presently waiting to hear back from someone who knows I think about tying flies!

Thank you Professor Richardson, that's a very good idea. I may know someone.

Wonderful, thank *you*!

Thank you for helping me inadvertently discover this lovely website: www.featherbase.info

Sitting on the edge of a page of an early printed book, a brown and cream feather, very fluffy at the bird end, about 2 inches long if memory serves correctly.

We (I mean @rcpmuseum.bsky.social) have one in a copy of Thevet's La cosmographie (1575), and I would be interested, likewise.

Thank you, might drop a line to Laura!

Thank you for your observations. That would be a very interesting bird for it to be. The book comes from an early modern church library. Perhaps the church was inhabited by owls.

Small yellow and black variegated bird feather in the gutter of a book.

A feather in the opening of an incunable. Would be very interested to know what bird this came from.

I can see why one might! 😂

An early eighteenth century Quarter Session Roll

I prefer this scrolling!

Black and white cat on tiled roof of building opposite, seen through my window, circled in red.

Cat on a hot tiled roof (sorry, punning is easier than working).

Central panel to cover of C16 pigskin binding with scrollwork. Flanked by a roll-tooled design with figures of Faith, Hope and Charity.

I prefer this scrolling.

Shared for #SpoliaSunday

Roof of basilica of San Giovanni, Rome, part of Roman wall, part of the Scala Santa building.

View presently from my desk (in a cafe on top floor of a department store). I guess it beats north London.

Sphinx on a plinth in woods with text carved into plinth picked out in red.

Self in woods in front of a large sculpture of a monster with gaping mouth and orb on its head.

A sculpture of a prone man with legs and arms scrolled.

Clearing in the woods with large stone mermaid and I think lion.

Golly, the late C16 sculpture garden of Bomarzo. Where to start? Well I won’t. But wow. Bomarzo.net

New Acquisition: The Neil Rhodes Collection – University Collections blog University Collections blog

This was a great blog email to get from @uniofstandrews.bsky.social Rare Books:

university-collections.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/2026/04/10/n...

Glass of wine and some nibbles (taragli visible) in a box.

Preparing for the spring.

Woodcut armorial including cypress tree with sun,two stars, eagle, lion and flag, supporters two male juveniles with arrows, one with a bow, the other with a horn, motto “Fructus et flores in odorem suavitatis”, helmet with armoured arm holding a sword, impaling a coronet.

Things are weird over at the Albrié arms. The sun looks perplexed, the lion is trying to climb the flagpole, the one-eyed eagle monster is about, and the boys just look spaced-out.

Room of the library. Two globes, telescope, pyramidical bookcase. Modern sculpture (pile of books) by Julian Opie.

Room of the library. Bookshelves, desk with lamps.

Room of the library. Tall bookcases, Grecian frieze along top of walls, central wooden cabinet, pharaonic lamp-holders.

The Biblioteca Palatina established by Maria Carolina of Austria (1752-1814), queen of Naples. Reggia di Caserta. The terms of MC’s marriage agreement were that she could join the privy council when she had a male heir. She did this in 1775 and subsequently became de facto ruler of Naples.

Cream canvas tote with logo “Reggia di Caserta” and image of a C18 intaglio pictorial initial L from a printed book with stone lion and building behind.

I try to resist buying totes, but when their decoration relates both to my name and profession …

Five artichokes, prepared for cooking, in a bowl of water.

One can never have enough artichokes.

Woodcut of a many-breasted woman with wings holding foliage and fruit with a scroll-like head-dress with pendants with foliage also at foot and with a banner with dangling fruit.

Artemis. From a title-page printed in Rome, 1653.

4 Apr 1508: Andrew Myllar prints off the first printed book in #Scotland #otd (eebo)

Two books, stacked, at off-angles. The bottom one in tan half-calf and patterned paper boards, the top one in vellum decorated in gilt.

Some glowing new arrivals, with licences from their vendor to leave Italy.