According to the MIMOA architecture site, the 23-storey glazed building has a custom LED lighting display which can be programmed to produce different light shows. I suppose the Rylands has the Armani shop next door for a little bit of lightshow spectacularism, but I wouldn’t mind one of these as well.

This is number 1 in the ‘8 Over-The-Top Libraries‘ on the Nile Guide travel blog, so do check them out. (With thanks to my book-fiend friend who forwarded the link).

The expert readers of this blog will of course be able to identify this as the frontispiece plate of the 1481 Florence ‘Landino’ edition, the behemoth book of the Dante collections.

You can see a larger version of the print here in Luna.

The engraving is by Baccio Baldini, the probable engraver of the illustrations in this edition. It shows the fresco of the Inferno in the Campo Santo of Pisa cathedral, which was destroyed in the Second World War, identified in the title in the top left corner of the image ‘QVESTO+ELINFERNO+DEL+CHA[M]POSAN TO+DIPISA+’, below:

I wonder if the addition of this frontispiece plate was a common feature of the illustrated editions of the 1481 Dante, as the copy held in the Beinecke Library at Yale also has the same plate pasted-in?

Anyway, apparently the body art Inferno isn’t finished yet, so what you see here is just the outline, with a few bits that still need touching up. We will, of course, keep you posted on progress. Meanwhile, the ambulant inscription may, perhaps, be viewable by application at the John Rylands Library on Deansgate, if you ask very nicely.

And that foul effigy of fraud came forward,
beached its head and chest
but did not draw its tail up on the bank.
It had the features of a righteous man,
benevolent in countenance,
but all the rest of it was serpent.
It had forepaws, hairy to the armpits,
and back and chest and both its flanks
were painted and inscribed with rings and curlicues.

(tr. by Robert Hollander)

Reproduced by courtesy of the University Librarian and Director, The John Rylands University Library, The University of Manchester

In the image you can also see the hand-painted initial capitals which are a feature of the Rylands copy of this edition.

Although Geryon is supposed to be a fearsome beast, in this rendering he reminds me of those oddly domesticated and cuddly early-Cinquecento monsters, like the demon in Raphael’s St Michael (1503-05) in the Louvre.

© Musée du Louvre/ Martine Beck-Coppola

The Louvre notes at the link above tell us there are actually Dantean scenes in the background of this painting, so Raphael obviously knew from contemporary illustrations of the Commedia…

Once you’re on the Rylands Medieval Collection page, to find the three Dante editions, type ‘Dante’ in the search box at top right (circled on image below):

You’ll see a page of thumbnails and the three editions listed by place of publication in the left margin (highlighted below with the red rectangle). Just click on the edition you want to view and LUNA will load the thumbnails. Sometimes the thumbnails don’t load in page order, in which case you will have to order them using the ‘Sort’ tool (circled in yellow on the image below, just under the search box at top right).

Make sure the sort options are in the following order:

Once you have your thumbnails in order, you can click on them to open them and zoom in on the detail. Enjoy!

Photo: Brewster Kahle, via Guardian Online

I was so impressed by this picture that I ripped it out of the newspaper and kept it (take that, digital media!). There are obviously two kinds of scholars in the world: the hamsters, and the other ones. I know which side I’m on.

Marking the essays is always a fairly time- (and space-) consuming business, when there’s so much to follow up and evaluate. I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago in the Reading Room when I was marking, as it was such an extravagant set-up.

L-R: two supports for the books, w/ a couple of priceless Dante incunables, the fibre-optic light sheet for watermarks behind them, beloved laptop, and a whole trolley-full of reference material.

There is always space for another picture of a load of books on a trolley in this blog.

A less generous interpretation of this housekeeping post might be my world-class ability to make the most austere space into a right mess within a few minutes…

The second one is a bit out of focus, but I’m posting it because I like the way the students look highly hostile and ready to leap over the table and attack us. Or maybe break into a musical number. Or maybe both.

You can also read John’s perspective on the close-up seminars on the SCARLET blog.

We’re drawing on the astounding Special Collections at Deansgate to create an augmented reality app which will support new learning and teaching activities. The idea is to surround the physical object (such as an incunable Dante edition, seventeenth-century editions of Paradise Lost, ancient Greek papyri) with a range of digital assets, and then pilot and evaluate the app’s use in teaching during the academic year 2011/12.

The project is being documented as we go along: for the original project spec, see our JISC page; and for more details, the recent MIMAS news item. All of the project participants are also blogging on the Team Scarlet project blog, and you can also follow us on Twitter as @team_scarlet.

His name is Stan, apparently.

I had such a good time teaching this group this year: they’re all really bright, funny, committed, and worked so hard on some really challenging medieval texts. We were extra lucky having three Italian Erasmus students in the class as well, which really enriched everyone’s perspective. See you all after the Year Abroad, I hope! (And Italians, come back and do your Masters with us!)

I made the most of the Folger collections and checked out their Boccaccios. First up was their copy of the 1587 English Amorous Fiammetta, one of only seven extant copies in public libraries. I’ve seen the British Library and the Bodleian copies, so only four to go.

So then I decided to concentrate on their different editions of the Corbaccio, Boccaccio’s misogynist dream-vision, which does exercise the sensitivities of his readerships. I was really excited to find one with copious annotations, giving me some grist for my feminist mill.

The underlined phrase in the dedication reads: ‘è piu d’honore alle femine esser vituperate dalla penna del Boccaccio, che lodate dall’inchiostro di molti scrittori plebei’ (roughly, ‘it does more honour to women to be vituperated by Boccaccio, than praised in the ink of many plebeian writers’).

Where to begin? Sexism is OK from the patrician class? Didn’t we see that on the news today? I suppose I’d better calm down, it’s only a joke, after all. *sighs*

(Grateful thanks to the Folger, for allowing me to take the photo, none the less.)

UPDATE: For international viewers who have no idea what I’m on about, the story is here.