Skip to main content

Holiday Hours: The Folger is closing at 4:30pm on Dec 24 and Dec 31. We are closed all day on Dec 25 and Jan 1.

All 478 posts on

Folger Collections

The Folger’s Mazarinades: Libraries within Libraries
Collation

The Folger’s Mazarinades: Libraries within Libraries

Posted
Author
Kathryn Gucer

A guest post by Kathryn Gucer In 1652, Gabriel Naudé argued passionately for the importance of libraries and collecting books in a brief pamphlet, Advis a nosseigneurs de Parliament. Naudé repudiates a proposal by the parliament of Paris to break…

Capital News from the Low Countries
Collation

Capital News from the Low Countries

Posted
Author
Goran Proot

What from a distance may look like a pasture, perhaps with oddly shaped poppies or some other flowers on the foreground and two buildings in the background, is actually much less pleasant. (Click any image in this post to enlarge…

Myth-busting early modern book illustration, part one
Collation

Myth-busting early modern book illustration, part one

Posted
Author
Erin Blake

There’s a common core of misconceptions that many readers of this blog will be accustomed to dispelling thanks to their interest in Shakespeare and Early Modern Europe. “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” doesn’t mean “Where’d you go, Romeo?!” Historic…

A letter from Queen Anne to Buckingham locked with silk embroidery floss
Collation

A letter from Queen Anne to Buckingham locked with silk embroidery floss

Posted
Author
Heather Wolfe

No, it’s not Lady Gaga’s hairline or the frizz on one of those creepy troll dolls. These were not real guesses from our readers, but the musings of Collation editorial staff when faced with an absence of comments to our…

A Geek-Peek at Folger "ART File" and "ART Box" Classification
Collation

A Geek-Peek at Folger "ART File" and "ART Box" Classification

Posted
Author
Erin Blake

One of the most fascinating books I read while working on my dissertation had nothing to do with the topic as such: It’s the 189-page “user’s guide” to the British Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings, published in 1987. In it,…

Volvelles
Collation

Volvelles

Posted
Author
Sarah Werner

As three of you immediately identified in your comments, last week’s crocodile mystery was the fastening in the center of a volvelle, holding the various layers in place and allowing them to turn: volvelle from Cortes’s Breve compendio, leaf 37r…

A third manuscript by Thomas Trevelyon/Trevilian
Collation

A third manuscript by Thomas Trevelyon/Trevilian

Posted
Author
Heather Wolfe

The author’s name in the Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608 (Folger MS V.b.232, fol. 264v); click image to enlarge in Luna. Many Collation readers are already familiar with the Folger’s Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608 (Folger MS V.b.232), and the fabulous Trevilian…

Winning the lottery
Collation

Winning the lottery

Posted
Author
Goran Proot

On Saturday 4 November 1617, the archdukes of the Southern Netherlands, Albert and Isabella, granted permission to the “gentil homme Lucquois” Matthias Micheli to organize a lottery for the foundation of the “Bergen van Barmhartigheid” or “Monts de piété.” First…

Cataloging at the Folger: a Primer
Collation

Cataloging at the Folger: a Primer

Posted
Author
Deborah J. Leslie

When I meet people for the first time and they hear that I am a rare book cataloger, I can expect one or both of these questions: “What’s a rare book,” and “What is cataloging?” This crowd doesn’t need my…

Such a lucky pretty little library...
Collation

Such a lucky pretty little library...

Posted
Author
Heather Wolfe

First leaf of Visus Libelli (a little book of advices) We thought we’d kick off your weekend with an amusing and fascinating hybrid book that is ripe for research. The as-yet unidentified compiler of this late seventeenth-century, ca. 800-leaf volume,…

Itty-bitty tab dividers
Collation

Itty-bitty tab dividers

Posted
Author
Erin Blake

The main trick with November’s “crocodile” was having to figure out the scale. It looks at first glance like a woolly button on a pin-striped shirt: The November ‘Crocodile’ But when a ruler is included in the shot, you can…

A new copy of Foxe's Actes and Monuments
Collation

A new copy of Foxe's Actes and Monuments

Posted
Author
Georgianna Ziegler

The Folger Shakespeare Library already has two copies of John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments, published in 1570, so why would we want another, especially as it is only volume 1, of a two-volume set? The answer provides a good example…

1 42 43 44 45 46 51