#Library of Alexandria

[crystalopal-14]

The internet age is like the modern library of Alexandria, except for the library is already on fire, and people are constantly moving the knowledge around to avoid the fires, but each time, some of the content gets left behind.

No matter how hard we try to archive content, especially media, we are slowly losing the battle against the fires due to lack of knowledge that stuff is even burning.

-Geneva M.

[victorian-robot]

NO! What the fuck NO!

Goddamn, this better be a troll.

Okay so first of all: losing a building which held EVERY DOCUMENT WHICH PASSED THROUGH A MAJOR PORT (because that was what it was, they copied every document that passed through the city and stored it in the library of Alexandria) would be a dire loss of information even if it was just historical. Historical records could provide some extremely useful historical information like: records of recurring natural disasters, patterns of how atrocities occur, or in how societies fall, records of dangerous areas and how to navigate them, etc.

BUT IT ALSO WAS NOT JUST HISTORICAL RECORDS!!! The library of Alexandria was a GENERAL academic hub! There were loads of major scientific documents stored there. True, we re-engineered many of those discoveries eventually but are you really going to argue that having fucking ENGINES by year 0 CE wouldn’t change how far along we were?! (Oh btw the design of the first recorded steam engine was stored in the library of Alexandria)

Look, I am a STEAM person. I get that science tends to have the bulk of the visibly impressive practical applications, but acting like information only matters if it is science related is a terrible move. (Also usually where we get the most unethical scientists from, because the study of both law and ethics are not scientific fields!). And dismissing information for not being scientific enough WHEN THE WORLD’S GREATEST COLLECTION OF SCIENTIFIC DATA WAS DESTROYED?! WHAT LEG ARE YOU EVEN TRYING TO STAND ON?!

The only thing they got right is that the library was badly damaged by under maintenance after political shifts caused it to fall out of favor. Which we know BECAUSE OF FUCKING HISTORICAL RECORDS!!

All of this is correct. No notes.

[blatentmisinformation]

The Library of Alexandria famously contained the first slashfic about the relationship between Odysseus and Posideon

[sirenscurse]

not that anyone cares, but this is where i’m from.

ALEXANDRIA, EGYPT.

[finleycannotdraw]

4. Historic Time ~ won’t you stay with me, my darling, when my walls start burning down? (x)

I have so many thoughts about Aziraphale and the Library of Alexandria (which, as a friend explained, should actually be translated to Alexandrea). I definitely think he was there when it burned. I also think it could’ve been the first time (one of the only times) Crowley touched him without thinking, and maybe one of the reasons he decided to run a bookshop! I am unwell. Aziraphale would’ve been devastated when that library burned.

[sleepytigereyes]

His what

[hyperfixating-rn-brb]

aziraphale finds out Caesar helped burn down the library of Alexandria. crowley finds out about a certain plan and lets the angel know. guess who's got their stab in.

[renn-aissance]

Imagine telling Gale about the Library of Alexandria.

The man would be inconsolable.

[fairytwles]

downloading over a thousand edits to my phone before the tiktok ban happens… is this what saving the library of alexandria would’ve felt like?

[dionysiaproductions]

It's a beautiful day in Ancient Rome and... you want to kill Julius Caesar.

[forklesbian]

Isn't it kind of funny how Ivy Alexandria died in a library that was burning down due to a war.

[mexicanpadfoot]

Me: I will never understand the Booktok girlies who buy tens of books only to display them on a shelf, it’s so wasteful.

Also me, having downloaded 24 fics as of the 10th of this month, having read only four entirely unrelated ones: This is digital archiving, I’m doing it for future generations, doctor please don’t sedate me again!

[borgialucrezia]

hi this is so random but a few months ago i went to rome and visited the vatican and the sistine chapel and i saw the painting The School of Athens by Raphael. The guides said he based the figures on people he knew irl (leonardo da vinci was the inspiration for plato etc etc) don't you think hypatia looks like other depictions of lucrezia borgia? I think he must've based it on her. from what i understand the cardinals at the time were pretty upset about the inclusion of a woman in the painting so maybe he modelled her after lucrezia to win some favour with the borgias

oh that's an interesting question !! afaik i haven't encountered any scholarly research suggesting that raphael's depiction of hypatia in the school of athens is similair to lucrezia borgia. though i wouldn't rule out the possibility because there's indeed a resemblance between hypatia in raphael's painting and pinturicchio's depiction of lucrezia in the hall of saints. also raphael had painted lucrezia before (though with slightly different facial features):

lucretia (1483-1520)

and like you said, i think it's worth noting that the inclusion of a female figure in the school of athens was controversial at the time. hypatia of alexandria's appearance may've been altered later to avoid any objections/backlash (especially since she's the only woman in a room full of men including raphael himself, plato, michelangelo, etc in the painting + her placement in the background also makes her less visible) if raphael really did model her after lucrezia, it could've a deliberate strategic decision perhaps as you suggested to gain favor or simply because he admired lucrezia's beauty. it's an intriguing possibility that's for sure !!

that being said, i've read a book that suggests some research points to raphael's portrait of a young lady with a unicorn (1506) possibly depicting lucrezia since she was also portrayed with a unicorn. but the most widely accepted interpretation is that the sitter is laura orsini (the daughter of giulia farnese and rodrigo borgia):

"I started looking at every detail in the picture for clues and certain things started jumping out," says Wolk-Simon. To start, the sitter is blonde -- like Lucrezia Borgia, Alexander VI's illegitimate daughter and Laura Orsini's probable half-sister. A tower in the portrait's background is from a landmark in Urbino, the duchy ruled by the della Rovere family. Wolk-Simon also discovered that the sitter's stunning ruby and pearl pendant necklace closely resembles a description of Guilia Farnese's jewels from court documents; the mythical unicorn cradled in the young woman's right hand turns out to be part of the Farnese coat of arms." — Dr. Linda Wolk-Simon, Raphael specialist and director and chief curator of the Bellarmine Museum of Art at Fairfield University

[internetgreatesthits]

[griffin-the-stupid]

A part of me dies every time I remember that if the Library of Alexandria hadn’t burned down, we’d have Alexander the Great’s patrochilles fics

[itsabeautifuldayinancientrome]

It's a beautiful day in Ancient Rome and... you want to kill Julius Caesar.

made by @dionysiaproductions