Marsh's Library
@marshslibrary
Beautiful library of the early Enlightenment in central Dublin. Opened in 1707; still welcoming visitors, tourists and scholars. Registered Charity RCN 20000752
His wife Elizabetha was an astronomer in her own right, seen here with Johannes making observations using a sextant.
The frontispiece of Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius' 'Machinae coelestis' from 1673 shows his predecessors Hipparchus, Ptolemy, Copernicus & Tycho Brahe who laid the foundations of astronomy.
A doodle with the tongue out - must be a particularly noteworthy section? Or someone got bored! Marginal notes in our 1503 copy of Cardinal Bessarion's defence of Plato, printed in Venice by Aldo Manuzio #MondayMarginalia #Readers #Doodles
A slightly ferocious looking beaver, from a 1555 Spanish translation of Materia Medica, the compendium of medicinal plants by the ancient physician Dioscorides.
The 32 wind directions, from Philippe Briet's 'Parallela geographiae', 1648-9
Some really fun design on this invoice for the Library's purchase of the 'Erin' fire extinguisher in 1938.
A map of Norway, and detail of Oslo, from Blaeu's Atlas Major, 1662-5
Pangolins from Guy Tachard's Second Voyage ... au Royaume de Siam, 1689.
Europe from an unusual perspective! From Sebastian Munster's Cosmographiae universalis, 1554.
A woodcut illustrating the geometry of the proportions of the body. From Albrecht Dürer's 'Della simmetria dei corpi humani, libri quattro', printed in Venice in 1591.
The printer's mark of Pietro Perna has really captured the surprised owl look! From the title page of Ludovico Castrelveto's 'Correttione d'alcune cose del dialogo delle lingue ...' printed in Basel in 1572.
"When you have a library and a garden you have everything you need", said Cicero. Maybe nowadays that should be a library, a garden, and a plunge pool?
The marvellous weighing machine of Santorio Santori! For 30 years the Italian physician weighed himself, everything he ate & drank, & everything he...expelled. From his experiments he discovered insensible perspiration, the loss of excess weight as water & carbon dioxide via the skin & respiration.
Good wine for good health! Dietary advice from 'Regimen sanitatis Salerni', *the* Medieval guide to good health. This is from an English translation printed in 1624.
A manicule, or pointing finger, added by an early reader to an important passage in Pope Gregory's Moralia, printed 546 years ago. The section reminds us to look on the bright side of adversity & not rest on our laurels #ManiculeMonday #MondayMarginalia
The latest round of our Maddock Research Fellowships has just been advertised. Come and work in our exciting research collection: marshlibrary.ie/about/news-e...
No more Rivals until November?! We'll just have to occupy ourselves with medieval romance until then! From Le rommant de la rose, 1526.
The best kind of book owner: Edward Lightbourne left not only his lovely signature, but also the year he bought this collection of John Milton's pamphlets, and the cost.
Armadillos & their cherub tormentors on a map of central and west coast Mexico, from Blaeu's Atlas Major, vol 10, 1662-5.
Oh no, Rupert Giles (aka the actor Anthony Head), everyone's favourite school librarian, has passed away. We were only talking at lunch yesterday about how Giles was the best TV representation of a librarian ever. RIP, Anthony Head.
Hmm, this might be a bit controversial: 'The purgatory of modern men', from 1619. As for that subtitle ...
Good luck to everyone starting their leaving cert today! A little bit of addition to warm the brain, from 'Records Arithmetick', a manual to teach simple & practical maths.
Whatever you're up to this weekend, may you be as entertained as these swans and fish!
It's very lovely to see all the irises in bloom around Dublin 8 at the moment. These hand-coloured beauties are from a mid-16th century herbal or Kreutterbuch.
A happy looking dog at court! From the engraved title page of Hugo de Groot's Introduction to Dutch jurisprudence, printed in 1636.
An impressive bouquet of flowers from Paul Contant's 'Le Bouquet Printanier', printed in 1600 in La Rochelle.
Somebody went to real efforts to erase what was written on the title page of this volume on Roman obelisks from 1589. They scribbled out the inscription and pasted a slip of paper over it. Must've been scandalous!
The binder used a fragment of printed music to line the spine of the letters of Aldo Manuzio the younger, from 1592. Music was tricky to print & the page may have had an error, or perhaps it didn't sell. Whatever the reason, it ended up in the waste pile #Fragments #Bindings
A tiny map of Venice from the title page of a pamphlet printed in 1606.