Don't Worry, Be Sneaky

I have, indeed, been creating the aforementioned wiki about book travel throughout the world.  I have just gotten a little bit paranoid and so I'm not publishing it on my blog.  Isn't that silly?  Well, I'm doing it all the same.  So if you are going somewhere and want to know its book history, drop me a line and I will hopefully have some information about that region's book history by then. 

I just wanted to tell you, internet persons, that I have not faulted in my attempts to get motivated. 

My latest discovery is the Rock Drawings in Valcamonica, northern Italy.  In this most norther region of the Lombardy you can find one of the largest and best collections of prehistoric petroglyphs.  I'm trying to steer our summer stopover in Italy to the north so that we can see these caves.   

Brooke's World Book Tour!

Sometimes I use the blog to motivate myself to do things I will love, but might otherwise not accomplish due to my ability to piddle away time doing other things that I like, but don't love. 

I am officially compiling a list/wiki/database of all of the awesome places/objects relating to Books and the History of Libraries throughout the world.  Consider it a travel guide for book nerds.  When I get it up and running ( more than one entry) I will post the link on this blog.  Hopefully I'll post tidbits I learn about along the way too. 

I've wanted a "Master List" like this for some time, so I've gotten out some of my old text books, emailed some teachers, and I'm going to put it together. 

Medieval Manuscripts Ahoy!

These are the clamshell boxes that BYU's conservator made for the Vulgate Bible "Bibila Sacra" and the Breviary - which is a book of religious devotions, prayers, things a religoius person should do and repeat.

This was  page from the Breviary - this is all written and decorated by hand.  It's absolutely stunning.  This letter is called an Historiated Letter.  

This past week I made an appointment with a curator of the BYU special collections to go see a few manuscripts that were created in the 14th and 15th centuries.  I was a little bit nervous too ask if I, a mere mortal, could view such precious items stowed away in the BYU vaults, but I realized "Wait, I am a Masters student in library science - I have some book cred!". 

Anyway, I had an assignment for my "History of Books and Libraries" class (which is blowing my mind) to look at a manuscript prior to 1500 and discuss some things regarding it's physical description, history and context, etc. 

Max can verify that I almost cried several times.  I'm out of control, I know.  It was really an amazing thing.  I'll post more about it later (because I'm slacking on my homework right now) but here is a link to the wiki I made for my assignment. 

Brooke's Manuscript Wiki

 The Mr.  let me take pictures, which was also amazing.  I looked at "Breviary, Toledo 1400", "Polychronicon (1342)", and a Vulgate Bible from the 1300's.  

I told Max afterward that I was pretty sure I wanted to go to book conservatory school.  We'll see how that goes.  

This is the breviary with it's original binding of Moroccan leather.   Amazing.