Yun Xie
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yunxie.bsky.social
Yun Xie
@yunxie.bsky.social
Passion is a finite research resource. History is at once art and science. Art history and book history, history of knowledge. Hongkong Type matrices. Non Latin typography and typefoundery. PhDing @ UGent. ERC: PhiSci.
今天查看麦都思从巴达维亚写给伦敦传道会总部的信件原文(SOAS已经都数字化并在线可查), 并与在华文界被广泛引用的《铸以代刻》(苏靖教授著)交叉比对,初步发现《铸》中一个档案日期错误。
错误本身并不大,是小小的校对失误,无伤大雅。但如果引用者没有核实原文,直接引用了苏文,就以讹传讹了。
November 27, 2025 at 11:07 AM
A 1842 French sinology article cover with 4 CN characters 其事好还” with Latin trans: “Quod ore prodit ad os revertitur. Prov.”
written by Guillaume Pauthier, who was comparing his own Dao De Jing道德经 trans with Stanislas Julien.
It’s one episode in longrunning debate between the two over trans of DDJ.
November 26, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Yun Xie
Another fabulous book from the recent #NewAcq: a spectacular #earlymodern Flemish panel stamped #binding! This is a monochrome embossed image, so difficult to photograph, but trust me! 📚💙 📜
November 25, 2025 at 11:34 AM
Reposted by Yun Xie
Inner library:
November 23, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Reposted by Yun Xie
#OTD 2 yrs ago!

"The Digitization of a Large Latin-Chinese Dictionary"

A guest post by Christopher Francese at Dickinson College. He writes on the digitization of the Lexicon Magnum Latino-Sinicum, linked below

#tbt

digitalorientalist.com/2023/11/21/t...
The Digitization of a Large Latin-Chinese Dictionary
This is a guest post by Christopher Francese, Asbury J. Clarke Professor of Classical Studies, Dickinson College [email protected] In 2016 I started assembling a team of students, scholars, an…
digitalorientalist.com
November 20, 2025 at 12:09 PM
Good lettering stands on its own! 😎
November 17, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Yun Xie
My first exposure to these aviform 🐦 Armenian letters was through this splendid plate in Andreas Müller's Alphabeta ac notae (published in 1703, but with a lot of material that probably dates from the 1680s). 🤓

(Pics < www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb1...)
November 16, 2025 at 6:20 PM
“国学=屁说” “国学=粪学”

During his 1.5 hr talk, Joshua Fogel generously treated us to Wu Zhihui吴稚晖’s snarky lines about guoxue国学……😎
November 15, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Typographical term “kerning” went viral in an unexpected way……
we need a department of kerning
November 13, 2025 at 3:37 PM
I am on the way to Würzburg on the anniversary of the Bishop of Würzburg’s death……
Friedrich von Wirsberg, Bishop of Würzburg

Who died #otd 12 Nov 1573

Print by Jost Amman

(British Museum)
November 12, 2025 at 9:08 AM
Reposted by Yun Xie
The font would appear to be English 111 Adagio CE, available for the highly presidential sum of just $39.75 USD

Note "The" is not kerned correctly

(see perspective-corrected still for reference)
November 12, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Reposted by Yun Xie
Delighted that our Decolonizing Chinese History Roundtable is now available in Chinese translation as a book! Thanks to the wonderful team at Uli books and for my brilliant co-authors @jimmillward.bsky.social @catielila.bsky.social Taomo Zhou, and James Evans
www.bookrep.com.tw?md=gwindex&c...
November 6, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Vincent van Gogh made this lithography of “potato eaters” by himself and sent it to his brother Theo and some friends as a prior announcement of the painting.
1885.
Litho technique allowed artists to express their own artistic style in a mass production way without compromising the quality.
November 6, 2025 at 12:18 PM
David Beckham has been knighted. Great news for him. But the British Royal household could choose a better design for the medal box, rather than the sans-serif font and some slightly dubious foil stamping…..
November 5, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Tian Wang’s Talisman, ward off disasters and banish evil spirits. From recent purchases,
perfect for Halloween.
October 31, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Reposted by Yun Xie
Wanna hear a scary story?

The first American vampire was Black.

Seriously.

78 years before Dracula appeared in American literature, there was "The Black Vampyre" by Uriah D'Arcy.

It was written in 1819 as an antislavery critique and the effect the Haitian Revolution had on the States
October 30, 2025 at 11:15 PM
At a printing art fair, I found a Chinese woodblock, carved on both sides双面雕刻. Combine elements of folk religion and medicine: at the top are Guanyin zuolian 观音座莲 and Huguo jiangjun 护国将军 (referring to Nezha哪吒). Below seem to be some medical prescriptions, such as Siwu Huadu Tang 四物化毒汤 and so on.
October 26, 2025 at 8:13 AM
In the special collections exhibition at the KU Leuven Library, two 18th-century silk prints: one a graduation thesis and the other a congratulatory poem, both common subjects for silk printing at the time. @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
October 25, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Yun Xie
In colonial India, William Herschel introduced fingerprinting in the 1850s to authenticate identity on legal documents.

Influenced by colonial ideologies, his experiments laid the foundations for modern forensic identification, codifying the hand as a scientific marker of identity.

#handoftheweek
October 24, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Reposted by Yun Xie
Just a 1399 unicorn watermark from a paper manufacturer from Valencia to make your day. Friends of #paperhistory know that these paper sheets of around 1400 are among the first sheets of European paper to appear on the market. European #bookhistory was a different game afterwards. #skystorians
October 25, 2025 at 6:40 AM
In the metal-type era, the way European punchcutters tracked the flow of straight lines, curves, ascenders, and descenders is strikingly similar to Chinese calligraphy’s sense of structure and strokes, so called 间架结构.
October 22, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Yun Xie
Join us for the online launch of The People of Print: Eighteenth-Century England, a collection of biographical essays about lesser-known figures from 18C book history!

The event is free to attend but booking is essential: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launc...

#18thC #18c #18thCentury #BookHistory
October 21, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Yun Xie
As part of the Small Performances Project, we are digitising Baskerville’s 18th-century printing punches using Photometric Stereo Photography. This technique captures surface details by varying light angles, revealing tool marks and engraving depth to reconstruct the typographic process in 3D!
September 19, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Find a new flavor chips at toko, not sure if I should try: stir fried razor clams!
October 15, 2025 at 4:25 PM
K-pop star, Blackpink’s Jennie just launched her own brand Korean font, Zen Serif.
October 15, 2025 at 2:28 PM