C A R N I V A L E S Q U E

A selection of fine early modern posts to kick-start 2011.

Over at Three Pipe Problem Hasan Niyazi compares Giorgione’s ‘Tempest’ to the work of fellow Venetian artist Carpaccio. This post, which pieces together knowledge about the symbolism of different birds, shows how Twitter-based collaboration can unite independent researchers across the globe to striking effect. Emily Brand at Shire Histories writes about human male plumage and seventeenth-century opinion about male wigs, while LOL Manuscripts! addresses the phenomenon of birds falling from the sky with characteristic vim.

Mercurius Politicus tells a great story of Henry Walker hurling his pamphlet To Your Tents, O Israel into Charles I’s carriage in 1642. The interesting thing about this post is that no copies of the pamphlet survive, so its historical content seems to become the very act of it being thrown. If it had hit him in the face he might have required a sixteenth-century nose job, as described by Writing the Renaissance.

Executed Today features Leonardo da Vinci’s sketch of a hanged man and links it to computer game Assasin’s Creed II, and The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice writes about the seventeenth-century condition of syphilophobia. Over at Fragments we are reminded that music was not the food of love for Thomas Overbury, who was allegedly sent ‘tarts and jellies laced with poison’ via a musician. The great ‘O’ antiphons from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer are discussed over at Chantblog, The Renaissance Mathematicus offers a complex and rewarding post on Kepler and The Conveyor’s smart blog features an illustrated post on Martin Lister’s copperplates.

Frederik de Wit’s beautiful, newly digitised Dutch town atlas is showcased over at BibliOdyssey, and In Pursuit of History draws our attention (and supplies some fabulous illustrations) to a number of interesting posts about frost fairs. Streets of Salem features some fascinatingly illustrated trade cards, a portion of which are early modern, and for those of you wanting to read about love in advance of Valentines Day, Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities has posted a readable copy of The seamans doleful farewel or, The Greenwitch lovers mournful departure. A meeting of a different kind – between two men on their way to be killed – is described by Early Modern Whale.

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