Click for huge! Your humble blogger went to London way, way back in 2004. I loved everything about London, and especially the British Library and the British Museum. Simply heaven. And herewith I present some photos I took at these places before I was shut down at the BL by this super snaggled tooth security lady. I sincerely did not know photography was prohibited - but note! I never used flash so I consider my crime victimless, aye, even more, a victory.
I know the names or authors of none of these books, unfortunately, as I did not take notes for my pics of these ancient books - this one's from like 1320 or some such. Also, I assume the pic above is from a complete book of medieval porn/botany.
More botany. And snakes.
Illuminated Texts is the name of the genre - huge manuscripts hand written by small armies of monks squirreled away in far off castles and monasteries. Beautifully painted and simply gleaming under light, no doubt due to the actual silver on the page. Books were once magical, mystical items of great import and rarity and as such, they were venerated. Now, we have Kindles and iPads and cheap ass paperback editions. It's the future, people.
Bonus British Library collection of
John Dee's magical items. Dee was fairly awesome, but yeah, it seems like there were so many awesome people back then. In history, that is. As opposed to now. We're all lame.
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