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Richard Brautigan

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photo Vettor Pisani

La dame de l'Eté

Je vis la dame de l'Été,  Magnétique et charnelle.  Des éclairs et des voluptés,  Des feux, des fleurs, des ailes,  La nimbaient, comme projetés  Par sa robe autour d'elle.  Je vis les amours s'exhaler  De sa splendeur vivace.  Et je n'osais pas lui parler,  Tant m'émouvait sa grâce.  Mais sur ses pas je suis allé,  Et j'ai baisé ses traces.

Louis Mandin. (1872-1943), Les Saisons ferventes (1914). 

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montxo algora in blue book - brad benedict (1983)

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Luigi Colani et sa Colani Horch V16 Mega-Roadster. - source Cars & Motorbikes Stars of the Golden era.

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Luigi Colani “Hypersonic Passenger Plane” (1983)

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Occult and esoteric imagery, circa 17th century

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the continuity of good and evil

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Illustration created for my upcoming new book, Ergo Cosmos!

"The first of the alchemists was he who set fire to the pyre upon which the Veiled Lady burned. To atone for such a sin, all those who are privy to the Highest Secrets swear to use the hand of will exclusively to restrain evil, and the hand of intuition only to perform good deeds. From this sorrowful figure derives the name of this sacred commitment, which is commonly known as the Oath of Minos."

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Illustration of the Great Comet of 1577, from the book Tarcuma-I Cifr al-Cami by Mohammed b. Kamaladdin, 16th century AD.

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From the Vault: Bloody Revelations

Top image: Reveal! design on t-shirt, 2018

Bottom image: illustration from Codex Vaticanus A, ca. 1580

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Manuscript Monday

Today we will be exploring our facsimile of an Exultet Roll, a southern Italian manuscript originally produced around 950 CE. This is a long scroll (24 feet long, unrolled) containing the text and chant notation for the Exultet, or Exsultet, which is a chant performed at the Easter Vigil mass, usually by a deacon before the congregation. It celebrates the night of the resurrection of Jesus, and is performed in praise of the Paschal candle, which is lit at every mass during the liturgical year. This candle slowly melts down until it is almost completely depleted, and then it is replaced at the Easter Vigil each year.

Although today it is usually chanted in the vernacular language of the Church being attended, this chant is referred to as the Exultet due to the first Latin word of the chant, which begins 'Exultet iam angelica turba coelorum' ('Let the angelic host of heaven exult').

Personally, one of my favorite parts of the Exultet chant is the portion known as the 'Praise of the Bees', which is said to be a reference to Virgil's writings in the Aeneid. This portion of the chant praises the work of the bees done to create the wax with which the Paschal Candle is made:

On this, your night of grace, O holy Father, accept this candle, a solemn offering, the work of bees and of your servants' hands, an evening sacrifice of praise, this gift from your most holy Church. But now we know the praises of this pillar, which glowing fire ignites for God's honor, a fire into many flames divided, yet never dimmed by sharing of its light, for it is fed by melting wax, drawn out by mother bees to build a torch so precious.

The codex -- books bound on one side as we know them today -- had long replaced the scroll by the time this manuscript was produced. So, why is this manuscript in the form of a scroll, rather than a codex? The reason is due to its ceremonial use at the Vigil mass. As the deacon chanted the Exultet, he would actually let the scroll unroll over the front of the ambo, so that members of the congregation could see the illuminations on the manuscript. Because of this use during the mass, these scrolls also have a peculiar feature: the text is written in an opposite orientation to the illuminations. This allowed the deacon to recite the chant accurately while the images were also oriented correctly for the attendees of the mass.

Use of Exultet scrolls during the Easter Vigil is unique to Southern Italian Catholic churches around Benevento and Montecassino and began being produced in the 10th century. All extant Exultet Rolls today were made between the 10th and 13th century.

Our facsimile is a reproducton of the Vatican Library's Codex Vaticanus Latinus 9820 and was published in Graz by the Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt in 1975. There are currently no complete images of the Scroll online, but the Vatican Library does have a digitized document explaining the condition of the scroll when it arrived there around 1200 CE.

View more manuscript posts.

View more Manuscript Monday posts.

– Sarah S., Former Special Collections Graduate Intern

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André Breton, Jacqueline Lamba, Le petit mimétique, 1936

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André Breton, Jacqueline Lamba, Yves Tanguy, Cadavre exquis, 7 February 1938

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Frederick Douglass Housing Project, Anacostia, Washington, D.C., Photo by Gordon Parks, 1942

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Alberto Giacometti’s Strollers, Paris

Gordon Parks, 1951

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Gordon Parks. Mary Ellen Terry talking, with her legs flat, in telephone booth. 1952

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