Happy Earth Day from the #sferaproject!
#medievalsky #earlymodern #maphistory #bookhistory
(G. Dati, La sfera/The Globe, early 15c; BNCF Magl. XI.83, f. 7r)

Donation page for the formerly-NEH-funded #sferaproject. The horrors persist, but so do we. 💪

Like many other #NEH -funded projects. the #sferaproject received notice yesterday that our grant has been cancelled. It's not yet clear what that means for the project, but we hope to have more info soon. Meanwhile, here's a screenshot of what they cancelled (our website-in-development):

PDF detailing "The World in the Renaissance: Digital Tools and Primary Sources", details at https://tinyurl.com/sferamar25.

Last call! Sat March 8th in Sarasota @lauramorreale.bsky.social and I will be offering a PD teacher workshop on pre-modern maps and mapping, based on our NEH-funded work on the #sferaproject. Pls see details tinyurl.com/sferamar25 — we have extended the sign-up deadline to Wed March 5th.

#sferaproject friends and #sferisti, on deck!

Greetings from Bamberg (here in post-pluvial evening light)! Looking forward to spreading the #sferaproject good news and learning A LOT at the #spathum2024 conference. 🤓

One of the fun aspects of my sabbatical job chasing down #sferaproject manuscripts last year was alllllll the different libraries I ended up in. Here are 2 selfies from the Österreichisches Nationalbibliothek in Viennal (left) and at the Biblioteca Braidense in Milan (right).

I post mostly abt the DH #sferaproject, now in its 2nd year of NEH funding with @amandamadden.bsky.social, @lauramorreale.bsky.social, and @lauraingalli.bsky.social. It's an amazing amalgam of visuals, maps, & text, so enjoy the ride!

(below, coast of Morocco in BML ConvSopp 109) 2/2

Hear ye! Hear ye! TEAM #SferaProject just submitted the MS of our gorgeous, super-illustrated, side-by-side It/Eng translation of Dati's _La sfera_, coming from Italica Press in 2025! (This is one cover image option. Srsly, the images are FAB.)

#medievalsky #earlymodern #maphistory #bookhistory

And with that, the AMAZING folks at the BAV have HD-digitized all *14* of their Sfera manuscripts! Here's BAV Borg. Lat. 539, f. 7v (elemental spheres): an unassuming MS, but one of my favorites. #bestcollaboratorsever #sferaproject

#medievalsky #earlymodern #maphistory

#sferaproject snippet: Unique in our corpus is this image of Saturn devouring his children, from #BnF MS Ital1076 f3r. I've been using a B/W microfilm PDF for months, and I didn't recognize this until I got color pics this week! Bit creepy, actually.

#medievalsky #earlymodern #astronomy #mythology

#sferaproject snippet: Today, just a lovely (and whimsical!) illustration of Cairo and Alexandria from BAV Urb Lat 752, f23r. Note the distances marked along the coastline in red, at right. #maphistory #medievalsky #earlymodern #bookhistory

#eclipse day! I really can't miss posting two great #sferaproject solar eclipse diagrams (left, Bib. Med.-Laur. Ashburnham 556 f5r, & right, BNCF ConvSopp B.1.2618 f7r). Caption: "the sun is obscured bc the moon stands btw it and the earth."

#medievalsky #bookhistory #astronomy #earlymodern

Statue of a bronze phoenix over the "Bibliotheca" sign marking the entrance to the Biblioteca del Seminario in Padua/Padova.

A 15th-century TO map with rivers, houses, walls, trees, and other decorative features, from Padua, Biblioteca del Seminario MS 29, f.14v.

#sferaproject snippet: After Venice, I popped over to Padua to the Biblioteca del Seminario, which holds two more Sfera copies, including this one (MS 29, here f14v), which may be the most charming TO map I've ever seen...

#medievalsky #maphistory #earlymodern #bookhistory

#sferaproject snippet: On Monday I was in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice, which has *3* copies of La sfera. This one (MS Ital. 6307, here f4r) was mostly uncolored but the drawings were lovely!

#bookhistory #medievalsky #earlymodern #maphistory

Marginal detail from a 15c manuscript of Dati's La sfera, showing Cairo, Damascus, Nineveh, Baghdad, and Mecca.

#sferaproject snippet: Please admire the very Italianate details of these Middle Eastern cities in Riccardiana 818—especially Cairo (spelled Hairo) at bottom right.

#medievalsky #bookhistory #earlymodern #maphistory

#sferaproject snippet: Last week I was at the Bib. Reale in Turin to see MS Aldini 90 (left), but a casual question revealed the existence of MS Varia 123 (right, sorry abt pixelation), which—three years into this project—we had no idea existed! You never know what will turn up...

#sferaproject snippet: These little vignettes in Laurenziana Med-Pal 90 just get more interesting, the more you zoom in (both 16v, African coast Tunis > Tripoli). Ships, flags, crow's nests, harbor—and what's with the dogs [?]?

#medievalsky #earlymodern #bookhistory #maphistory

Today's #sferaproject snippet is actually NOT La sfera, it's #fragmentology! Here's a fun late Caroline binding fragment (text is Gregory the Great's Homilies on the Evangelists) in Biblioteca dell'Archivio di Stato di Firenze, MS Gianni 53 (image reversed):

#medievalsky #bookhistory

CALL for VOLUNTEERS! True to its crowdsourced roots, the #sferaproject is looking for help transcribing map labels in 15c Sfera MSS! One MS is prob. 1-4 hrs of your time: typical examples below. Sign up here: tinyurl.com/sfera-geodata

🙏 #medievalsky #bookhistory #earlymodern (+ pls repost)

A lat-15th-century diagram of the 16 winds, with a TO map at the center.

#sferaproject snippet: diagram of the 16 winds in Ravenna. Bib. Classense MS 242, f. 23r. Please note the charming humanistic bookhand and the cute little TO map at the center. #medievalsky #bookhistory #early modern

#sferaproject snippet: Given that it's February, please enjoy this wonderful depiction of "summer" from Lucca, BIblioteca Statale MS 1343: Swimming, with wine.

Not to mention swim trunks that don't seem entirely opaque. 🫣

#medievalsky #bookhistory #earlymodern

#sferaproject snippet: Last week I was at the Biblioteca Universitaria in Pavia, which has a SECRET TOILET. 👀 Also, the manuscript was in a lovely hand even if it did attribute the text to one "Niccolò Dati".

A hand-drawn city and sea beasts in Laurenziana Med.-Pal. 90.

#sferaproject snippet: Fantastic sea beasties in Laurenziana Med.Pal. 90 (f. 14r):

#medievalsky #bookhistorians Is there anyone here with ties to the library at the University of Basel, and in particular to the Comites Latentes collection? I have a #sferaproject question about one of their manuscripts but I seem to have been emailing into the abyss.

Unexpectedly calling in the late medieval English MSS team on a #sferaproject topic! @themedievaldrk.bsky.social, is your OSU email still valid? Or could you email me?

#sferaproject snippet! We finally got color pictures of Laurenziana Med.-Pal. MS 90, which, apart from being glossed (super-unusual), has charming additions to the standard diagrams and maps. This is where Dati talks about the risks of shipwreck (f. 13r) 👀:

On my way to give my first #sferaproject talk in Italian, muttering pronunciations to myself. Disugualianze, disugualianze, disugualianze… 😬🤣

PS. Our #sferaproject MS tracker is up to 165 Sfera MSS now—turns out the Bib. Corsiniana here in Rome has not 2 but *4* copies. 😉🤩

Yes!!! And with that, ladies and gentlemen, the Vatican has completed its digitization of ALL 14 SFERA MSS in the BAV. A major #sferaproject win.