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𝕊onja Drimmer

@Sonja_Drimmer

29 Jan

Manuscript lesson of the day: anti-theft edition! Here's an inventory of books from St Paul's Cathedral Library, written up in 1458. It is written in the form of a chirograph, with wavy lines at the edge. Explanation in the next tweets. (BL Cotton Charter xiii.2) /1

Two identical copies were drawn up then cut along the line at the left, each held by a different individual. At a given time, a chaplain would be asked to show this inventory next to its copy for a shelf audit. /2

This helped identify books missing from the shelves. The wavy lines ensure that the copies brought together were those written at the same time & are exact copies. This prevented the chaplain from forging a copy of the inventory which might leave off any books he had stolen. /3

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𝕊onja Drimmer

@Sonja_Drimmer

27 Jan

Journalists' casting everything in terms of opposing sides is so ignorant, given that the "globalist elite" [yikes, but not surprising] cited by 1 redditor is meant to be the opposite of the "internet dorks" among whom is one who invested 6figs in shares. slate.com/technology/202…

One of the new investment apps for entrants to the market is called "Robinhood," & there's a lot to say here abt the so-called internet dorks who thing of themselves as neo-medieval populists, stealing from that "globalist elite" (antisemitic slur) & reallocating to themselves.

Can I write an article on this? It's the about page for Robinhood.

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𝕊onja Drimmer

@Sonja_Drimmer

30 Dec 20

Manuscript lesson of the Day! A quickie thread on...evidence of thread! Perusing this early 13C Psalter, and I, very happily, came across these holes, which appear to be curtain holes. bl.uk/manuscripts/Vi… /1

https://twitter.com/Sonja_Drimmer/status/1075087524341653505?s=20

Here's an earlier thread I did on curtains:

https://twitter.com/Sonja_Drimmer/status/1075087524341653505?s=20

This fall I attended an excellent talk by Morgan Adams, titled, "Hidden in Plain Sight: Identifying Evidence of Curtains in Medieval Manuscripts in the Morgan Library & Museum." I learned new things about how to identify evidence that a MS once contained curtains. /3

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𝕊onja Drimmer

@Sonja_Drimmer

28 Sep 19

1. In 1936 art historian & medievalist Meyer Schapiro wrote two articles skewering the racism of his colleagues who claimed that the root of style lay in the race of the artist examined. In one of these, “Race, Nationality, and Art,” he writes abt the danger of this position.

2. It's not a perfect article, it certainly has flaws. But Schapiro knew that he had a responsibility as an art historian to take a stand. The full citation is: Meyer Schapiro, “Race, Nationality, and Art,” Art Front (1936): 10-12.

3. The article is not available on any widely accessible databases. I have uploaded it from a scanned microfilm to my academia edu page. I'll try to find a way to link to it elsewhere this evening of tomorrow. I don't want to drive traffic to my own page; it feels opportunistic.

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𝕊onja Drimmer

@Sonja_Drimmer

31 Jan 19

https://twitter.com/lindaskitka/status/1090431515627061249

This is a glorious thread. It’s especially useful to read examples of collegial generosity, the kinds of small gestures it might not occur to us to make, but which mean a lot to the person on the receiving end.

https://twitter.com/lindaskitka/status/1090431515627061249

I’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of kindness from senior scholars. And some of the nicest things they ever did for me at conferences was to treat me like a peer over a cup of coffee or glass of wine.

There’s often a weird disconnect in grad school: by the time we get there we’re already adults. In my case I got married the first year of my PhD and had started after a year of working at ABC News. Yet in many ways we go back to being “kids” looking for the approval of profs.

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𝕊onja Drimmer

@Sonja_Drimmer

31 Jan 19

When people speak of "bad" medieval art, or medieval artists who "can't" draw, generally they're referring to the absence of naturalism (portraying things as they "actually look"). But look at this majestic Vierge Ouvrante, pictured here in Elina Gertsman's book _Worlds Within_+

Medieval artists could be masterful conjurors of form for a wide range of effects that just can't be achieved by naturalism. Gertsman spends the length of a book unspooling the many threads of meaning that these sculptures generate.
psupress.org/books/titles/9… +

Some artists may have chosen to convey the humanity of Christ by rendering both him and his mother as convincingly as possible, attending to the veins and tendons beneath his once living skin. +

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