#Beinecke Library

[power-chords]

The structures at the Beinecke my grandfather had a hand in constructing. I find it poignant that they happen to be those which 1) permit vertical movement, and 2) hold up the entire building.

[dinosaurwithablog]

On a trip to Yale University, I went to one of their museums and saw this. I love it!! ❤️ I love how many animals are integrated within this one piece. I really enjoy going to museums. I, also, enjoy libraries. Next time I go to Yale, I'm gonna have a book reserved in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. It houses really old books. They let the public peruse these ancient tomes!!! They even have the Gutenberg Bible, which is one of the first books to be printed using a printing press. I just want to hold it and feel the pages and smell the history that lies within it's covers.... but I digress. I love visiting Yale University. There's so much available to the public and so much to enjoy learning about. It's a great place!!! 😊😍

[imaddressingyou]

America hates her crazies.

[wyrmfedgrave]

History.com: The Mysterious Contents of the Voynich Manuscript

Is this the real life Necronomicon?!!

This manuscript, was found in the Jesuit College at Frascati, by William Voynich in 1912.

During a 1921 tour, Voynich claimed that its pages held discoveries more advanced than 20th century science!

(How would he know? The manuscript is still undeciphered today!! Yeah, I know. Advertising...)

Written in an unknown language, this medieval treatise has intricate drawings of stars, plants & nude women!

Which many intelligent folk, from Alan Turing to the FBI, have tried decode - with no success...

There is a letter included with the manuscript which claims that Roger Bacon wrote this book - but, ink & radiocarbon dating confirm it's actually from the 15th century - 300 years after Bacon!!

(I wonder, has that letter being dated yet?)

For those who are interested, the text is available online at the Beinecke Library.

Strangely enough, for the 15th century, some of the 230+ calfskin pages fold out into large composite images!

The paperback sized Voynich manuscript seems to be a collection of worldly knowledge.

It seems to be divided into 6 chapters, out of which the 'Recipe' section has 300 short paragraphs - or, are they magic spells?!

Researchers are still trying to figure out if the 'book' is written in a cypher or a made up language... They don't even agree if there's anywhere from 34 or 70 unique symbols in it!

One person thought Francis Bacon wrote this book in microscopic letters - til it was realized the micro- scope hadn't yet been invented in Bacon's time!!

Today, the thought is that it might be an ingenious medieval prank - or, an alien handbook!

Sigh...

"It's a cookbook!!"

Sorry, Twilight Zone flashback...

End?

[questionableadvice]

~ sign from The Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851 

Yes, please. I am in need of Explanations

[garadinervi]

Roy DeCarava (photograph), Billie Holiday, [1955] [Langston Hughes papers, JWJ MSS 26, Oversize, Box 633, folder 14226, Yale University Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, New Haven, CT. © Ole Brask]

[roses-of-the-romanovs]

Anastasia being Anastasia!

(Photo from Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.)

[nextstopwonderland]

Kind of obsessed with the Cipher Manuscript (aka the Voynich Manuscript) as seen on Mystery Files. Here’s some of the photos from The Beinecke.

The book has been fully digitized by them and is available here.

[moodboardmix]

Beinecke Rare Book Library at Yale University,

New Haven, Connecticut, United States,

Gordon Bunshaft, 1963,

Photo: Pete J. Sieger

[nyxshadowhawk]

The Ars Notoria!

This is one of the grimoires of the Solomonic tradition of ceremonial magic. The Ars Notoria is technically part of the Lemegeton, but sometimes it’s treated as a separate text. I was expecting it to be in Latin, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was in English — very readable English, and in beautiful handwriting! It’s a translation of earlier Latin versions, but it has the feel of a personal Book of Shadows. A human wrote this. There are lines crossed off, words squeezed into the margins or added with little carrots.

This book is a great example of the fact that there’s a very fine line between a prayer and a spell. It mostly consists of a series of prayers and psalms, but it has some “voces magicae”-esque recitations of sacred names or multilingual incantations.

Did you know that hydromancy, pyromancy, and chiromancy count amongst the Liberal Arts? The Solomonic grimoires really make it clear how much magic is intertwined with the Liberal Arts (i.e. mathematics, philosophy, theology, grammar, rhetoric, astronomy, etc.). Many of the demons listed in the Ars Goetia teach these subjects (no wonder Faust was a scholar). The Ars Notoria says that you have to study certain liberal arts on specific days, just as you have to perform rituals on specific days and during specific planetary hours and so forth. And recite long mystical incantations before studying philosophy. Just like folk spells, these long prayers are supposed to have specific magical effects, like improving your memory and speech.

The Ars Notoria isn’t nearly as exciting as the Ars Goetia. I only found two magical figures in it. It took me way too long to realize that the mystical figures that surround the second one are, in fact, the alphabet. I guess that’s what you get when your grimoire is in English? Well no, actually. That figure actually demonstrates a handy spell that uses a magnetized needle (that’s what the symbol in the middle is meant to represent) to communicate with a friend at a long distance, using a method similar to an ouija board or one of those pendulum boards that you can get. As the needle turns, it spells out the message that your friend wants to send to you. Kind of interesting that this book includes a whole magical operation for something that we can do with our phones in an instant, and with much greater accuracy.

I looked up who Bernard Zufall was. Zufall was known for his ability to memorize anything, and had the largest collection of books dedicated to mnemonics, which was then donated to Yale University. He was more of a stage magician than a ceremonial magician. I’m not sure how or why he acquired an Ars Notoria, but I’m grateful that he did, because that means I get to see it.

[power-chords]

This exhibit was rough, but I’m glad we saw it.

[oerzttz]

[gregdotorg]

The Beinecke Library at Yale holds Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas' papers. The collection includes the photo at top, of Stein seated, with a shaggy poodle, and holding an unframed portrait of the poodle between them.

Stein and Toklas had three dogs over their life together, each they named Basket. This portrait is of Basket II, and it was painted by Marie Laurencin. It is illustrated above, in a gold frame, and is also in the Beinecke.

Many artworks in the Beinecke's collection migrate to the Yale University Art Gallery collection, but Laurencin's Basket II has not. One impact of that is the cataloguing data categories are different, and the painting's dimensions are not published. But it looks to be about 50 x 40 cm.

I really really do not want to be a dog painting person, but how can I look into those eyes and resist?

Thank you art historian Michael Lobel on Bluesky for helping me on my journey by posting this.

[returntomytilene]

Violet (Gaff) Shillito, also known as Violette, no date, unknown photographer.

Mabel Dodge Luhan Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

Box 74, folder 2064a

[taxi-davis]

Untitled (1959) by Saul Steinberg