AaronM
@aaronm.bsky.social
1.7K followers 180 following 400 posts
I dissect calendars in Books of Hours and keep a close eye on the Vatican Library, sometimes in that order. https://www.cokldb.org/ https://www.wiglaf.org/vatican/
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aaronm.bsky.social
"Forgot to renew the SSL Cert" is one of the top 5 causes of inarticulate screaming by sysadmins!
aaronm.bsky.social
A distant friend does a dance wearing a burning hat as wedding entertainment... Though not, sadly, to Midnight Oil
aaronm.bsky.social
Only 5 new #Manuscripts from the #Vatican this week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Consists of a Ge'ez Book of Hours, a commentary on Aristotle, Nonius Marcellus' De compendiosa doctrina (his only surviving work), Seneca's Tragedies and a vol of Papal stuff
#MedievalSky #Skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 40 of 2025
An extremely quiet week, with only five manuscripts digitized. Of these four are from the Ott.lat collection, and the final one is from Comb. To the right is f.3r from Ott.lat.1713, a 14th C manusc...
www.wiglaf.org
aaronm.bsky.social
Only 16 #Manuscripts from the #Vatican were digitized in the past week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Includes a lot of Ge'ez liturgy, 3 volumes of poems by Aurelio Amalteo, a report from the Venetian ambassador to France, Papias' dictionary, and more!
#MedievalSky #Skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 39 of 2025
Only sixteen manuscripts were digitized in the past week. Unusually the largest number, fully half, came from the Comb collection This collection of primarily Ethiopic liturgical manuscripts came fro...
www.wiglaf.org
aaronm.bsky.social
47 new #Manuscripts from the #Vatican were digitized this week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Includes another Sanvito-rubricated work, Beneventan fragments, Diaries, Classics, Philosophy, Strozzi's _Eroticon_, and more!
#MedievalSky #Skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 38 of 2025
A total of forty-seven manuscripts were digitized in the past week, which is slightly above average when comparing to recent weeks. Also in-line with the patterns of recent weeks, the most manuscripts...
www.wiglaf.org
aaronm.bsky.social
33 new #Manuscripts were put online by the #Vatican last week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Includes a nice humanist Cicero, a less-nice Caesar, an unknown collection of charters, Macrobius, Satires, and much Leonardo Bruni!
#MedievalSky #Skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 36 of 2025
Another week done, another thirty-three manuscripts digitized. As is becoming the current pattern, the majority of these, twenty-one, came from the Ott.lat collection. An interesting detail is that i...
www.wiglaf.org
Reposted by AaronM
sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
"Anxious" is the first word I included in my "AI" dictionary! It came from a paragraph I had to cut from an article I published, which was way over the word limit. Here's the cut paragraph:
ANXIETY 
It is common to read that critics are "anxious" about the adoption of computer vision in art history, chewing our fingernails in trepidation of the machine. This characterization seems less to emerge from opposition than from routine. "Anxiety" is a ready-to-hand context for discrediting any kind of demurral to movements, tools, systems that hawk a promise of progress, and this is especially the case for technology. But objecting to something is not tantamount to being anxious about it. If I were asked to attach affect to my objections, then a more accurate description is frustration with the deracinated nature of current conversations. Postmortems of biases and errors, recognition of the limitations and misalignment of machine learning's capabilities with matters of relevance to current art historical research and teaching--necessary as all this is--raise the very question that few people seem to be asking: what good is this? Or, more importantly, for whom is it good? Cui bono.
aaronm.bsky.social
I've added my comment. I'm not sure if it will change anything, but it's a small amount of effort to try
osamet.bsky.social
For those justifiably concerned/angry about this, there's a way to make your voices heard. Public notice and comment on this proposed rule goes through Sep 27

Go to this link and click "Submit a public comment" at the top: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...
osamet.bsky.social
I know there's a lot happening today, but this is sneaking in under the radar. This proposed new rule would absolutely crush foreign PhD students, potentially making it impossible for them to enroll with any certainty of their ability to finish www.politico.com/news/2025/08...
aaronm.bsky.social
Look who thinks Charlemagne was a real guy🤪 We all know was just a fictional character invented by Otto so his reign would cross the year 1000
aaronm.bsky.social
I thought they were still on vacation, but the #Vatican added 12 #Manuscripts this week
www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
a c.861 Gregory's Regula leads, with another Papal diary, a theological and a medical miscellany, Priscian, Pier Paolo Vergerio, even an antipope.. and more
#MedivalSky #skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 34 of 2025
No manuscripts were digitized last week and only twelve this week, due to the summer holidays. The overwhelming majority of them, nine or 75%, are from Ott.lat. The rest are one each from Barb.lat, ...
www.wiglaf.org
aaronm.bsky.social
I think the "Fall of Byzantium" candle smells like the beeswax and incense of the katholikon at an Orthodox monastery, the sulferous burn of gunpowder... and just a soupçon of roasting doner.
aaronm.bsky.social
Due to the summer vacation, no new #Manuscripts were digitized by the #Vatican in the past week
aaronm.bsky.social
A reasonably strong 75 #Manuscripts were added by the #Vatican this past week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025/week32.html
Includes several incunabula hybrids, several Ge'ez liturgicals, Petrarch, 12th C Priscian, illuminated Ovid, legal texts, papal-adjacent docs and more!
#MedievalSky #Skystorian
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 32 of 2025
A much more active week brings seventy-five new manuscripts online. Breaking the pattern of recent weeks, Ott.lat contributed thirty-two this week, the most active fond. Both Barb.lat and S.Maria.Ma...
www.wiglaf.org
aaronm.bsky.social
My GPT has a Mohs smartness of 9.2. Only diamonds are smarter
sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
“Nah, man. My GPT is THIRTEEN RICHTER SCALE smart.”
sonjadrimmer.bsky.social
“Bro, bro, bro: my GPT is SEVEN MICHELIN STAR smart.”
aaronm.bsky.social
Interesting that they're relisting the "part printed, part manuscript" volumes on the MS side now. I've never bothered to pay attention to the Incunable side, but a lot of the last week or so have been hybrid volumes
aaronm.bsky.social
I think that qualifies as praiseworthy
aaronm.bsky.social
Only 10 #Manuscripts from the #Vatican this week www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Inc. 19th C Palestrina MS copies, a Mass setting in print by Borja, 17th C papal records, a 14th c Missal, some Orations, Sonnets Madrigals, and a bit more!
#Skystorians #MedievalSky
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 31 of 2025
A quiet week, even by the recent pattern of quiet weeks, brings only ten digitized manuscripts online. These included three each from Barb.lat and Capp.Sist, two from Ott.lat, and one each from S.Mari...
www.wiglaf.org
aaronm.bsky.social
yeah, the marginal notes in the calendar are very English and, along with the added dates, seem to match the signature of "John Birnie of Broomhill" at the end of December
aaronm.bsky.social
The calendar is medium-filled (211) and error prone, with an interesting red/blue/gold, but not complete, color pattern. A later hand added day numbers. On 5 of the months the KL was excised, and later replaced, making the top few entries on the verso difficult to read (see f.2v below)
2/2
f.2v from Smith College Codex 274.  It contains the second part of the calendar from February, with evidence of the KL on recto being excised and later replaced
aaronm.bsky.social
The first Hours from @smithcollege.bsky.social has been added, Codex 274 - www.cokldb.org/p/v100/ms/905
From Rouen, it has multiple later additions, including a Tallis motet, that point to English ownership. There's some evidence of cutting
#MedievalSky #Skystorians
1/2
f.34r from Smith College Codex 274.  The start of a psalm, a large miniature of King David kneeling with his harp before him and an elaborate border. Four lines of text in a gothic hand starting with a 3-line illuminated D
aaronm.bsky.social
another week, another 29 #Manuscripts digitized by the #vatican www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2025...
Including plays by Sebastiano Baldin, Euclid, Ethiopic liturgy, dated and glossed Seneca, patristics, papal history, and Peñafort... oh my!
#MedievalSky #Skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 30 of 2025
Another week of digitizing concludes with twenty-nine new manuscripts, which seems to be the current pace. The largest collection continues to be Barb.lat, with eleven added. Following that was Ott....
www.wiglaf.org