g.j.hilton
@hltn.bsky.social
historian of renaissance & em scenography: the material, manufacturers & manufacturing of magnificence & spectacle - intermezzi, machines, feasts, gardens. 🖤 burgundy
(2025-7) pivot: msc bweh, edinburgh medical school
whitby, n.yorks because: goth
(2025-7) pivot: msc bweh, edinburgh medical school
whitby, n.yorks because: goth
#earlymodern #skystorians
#PALAEOGRAPHY BAT SIGNAL
This is a ledger (England 1551). The column with the dots, circles & slashes is a counter system similar to the one described at www.folger.edu/blogs/collat... but just different enough to have me stumped.
Can any of you crack how to read it?
#PALAEOGRAPHY BAT SIGNAL
This is a ledger (England 1551). The column with the dots, circles & slashes is a counter system similar to the one described at www.folger.edu/blogs/collat... but just different enough to have me stumped.
Can any of you crack how to read it?
January 20, 2026 at 8:51 AM
#earlymodern #skystorians
#PALAEOGRAPHY BAT SIGNAL
This is a ledger (England 1551). The column with the dots, circles & slashes is a counter system similar to the one described at www.folger.edu/blogs/collat... but just different enough to have me stumped.
Can any of you crack how to read it?
#PALAEOGRAPHY BAT SIGNAL
This is a ledger (England 1551). The column with the dots, circles & slashes is a counter system similar to the one described at www.folger.edu/blogs/collat... but just different enough to have me stumped.
Can any of you crack how to read it?
Using LaTeX for the first time - to format a nightmarishly complex manuscript accounts book I'm transcribing - and oh my gosh where have you been all my life? 🖤
People on the arts side of the two cultures are 100% missing something unbelievably cool and useful here. Well and truly kicking myself.
People on the arts side of the two cultures are 100% missing something unbelievably cool and useful here. Well and truly kicking myself.
January 19, 2026 at 6:23 AM
Using LaTeX for the first time - to format a nightmarishly complex manuscript accounts book I'm transcribing - and oh my gosh where have you been all my life? 🖤
People on the arts side of the two cultures are 100% missing something unbelievably cool and useful here. Well and truly kicking myself.
People on the arts side of the two cultures are 100% missing something unbelievably cool and useful here. Well and truly kicking myself.
Reposted by g.j.hilton
Issue 42.2 of Parergon was released just before Christmas. A special issue focused on medieval English attitudes to the outside world, Alison Hudson's article 'Elephants in English Literature, Art, and Material Culture before the Reign of Henry III' is currently open access!
doi.org/10.1353/pgn....
doi.org/10.1353/pgn....
January 17, 2026 at 5:59 AM
Issue 42.2 of Parergon was released just before Christmas. A special issue focused on medieval English attitudes to the outside world, Alison Hudson's article 'Elephants in English Literature, Art, and Material Culture before the Reign of Henry III' is currently open access!
doi.org/10.1353/pgn....
doi.org/10.1353/pgn....
Holbein's famously drab, understated designs for a cup Henry VIII gave to Jane Seymour.
We've all read Wolf Hall & know the timescales... how can the goldsmiths possibly have turned it around before her death let alone in time for presentation on the wedding day (as 2ndary sources claim or imply)?
We've all read Wolf Hall & know the timescales... how can the goldsmiths possibly have turned it around before her death let alone in time for presentation on the wedding day (as 2ndary sources claim or imply)?
January 17, 2026 at 1:36 PM
Holbein's famously drab, understated designs for a cup Henry VIII gave to Jane Seymour.
We've all read Wolf Hall & know the timescales... how can the goldsmiths possibly have turned it around before her death let alone in time for presentation on the wedding day (as 2ndary sources claim or imply)?
We've all read Wolf Hall & know the timescales... how can the goldsmiths possibly have turned it around before her death let alone in time for presentation on the wedding day (as 2ndary sources claim or imply)?
Victorian Times classifieds will break your heartl
20/12/1885
20/12/1885
January 12, 2026 at 6:06 PM
Victorian Times classifieds will break your heartl
20/12/1885
20/12/1885
Jacqueline Durran's costumes for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights evidently committed totally to full Walter Plunkett with precisely zero f's given for period or local authenticity, plausibility or indeed sanity - whatever those might be. Wildly gorgeous.
www.vogue.co.uk/article/wuth...
www.vogue.co.uk/article/wuth...
January 12, 2026 at 1:33 AM
Jacqueline Durran's costumes for Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights evidently committed totally to full Walter Plunkett with precisely zero f's given for period or local authenticity, plausibility or indeed sanity - whatever those might be. Wildly gorgeous.
www.vogue.co.uk/article/wuth...
www.vogue.co.uk/article/wuth...
"… these matters be kings' games, as it were stage plays, and for the more part played upon scaffolds. In which poor men be but lookers on. And they that wise be, will meddle no farther."
Thomas More, The History of King Richard Ill
Thomas More, The History of King Richard Ill
!["In a stage play all the people know right well that he that playeth the sowdayne [sultan] is percase [perchance] a sowter [shoemaker]. Yet if one should can so little good [be so naive] to show out of season what acquaintance he hath with him, and call him by his own name while he standeth in his majesty, one of his tormentors might hap to break his head, and worthy, for marring of the play. And so they said these matters be kings' games, as it were stage plays, and for the more part played upon scaffolds. In which poor men be but lookers on. And they that wise be, will meddle no farther. For they that sometime step up and play with them, when they cannot play their parts, they disorder the play and do themselves no good?"
Glosses via John J. McGavin and Greg Walker, Imagining Spectatorship from the Mysteries to the Shakespearean Stage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p 173 - which also has a good discussion and comparison passage from Erasmus](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:oeluunotf3wnhds3xyijhctn/bafkreieivjyif7zd5azu6minal4lr6yjm7jlrtx7qeflr2yhckkr6jnegu@jpeg)
January 9, 2026 at 1:30 AM
"… these matters be kings' games, as it were stage plays, and for the more part played upon scaffolds. In which poor men be but lookers on. And they that wise be, will meddle no farther."
Thomas More, The History of King Richard Ill
Thomas More, The History of King Richard Ill
In my house, national treasure Ivan Day announcing he's giving an online talk on.... Georgian porcelain for ice cream is received basically like Keith Richards playing the opening riff from Satisfaction.
www.museumofroyalworcester.org/whats-on/win...
www.museumofroyalworcester.org/whats-on/win...
January 9, 2026 at 12:23 AM
In my house, national treasure Ivan Day announcing he's giving an online talk on.... Georgian porcelain for ice cream is received basically like Keith Richards playing the opening riff from Satisfaction.
www.museumofroyalworcester.org/whats-on/win...
www.museumofroyalworcester.org/whats-on/win...
Inhaled in one 15hr overnighter: game-changing redefinition of the field, beautifully written, beautifully thought.
Don't agree with all of it & find it much too cautious in its exclusion of other & later forms - masques, intermezzi etc - but devastated by how much cleverer the authors are than I.
Don't agree with all of it & find it much too cautious in its exclusion of other & later forms - masques, intermezzi etc - but devastated by how much cleverer the authors are than I.
Happy New Year and a pretty stupendous start to 2026 from my perspective as Predramatic Theatre -my co-authored book with @gregmw4.bsky.social - was published by Palgrave on Friday!
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Very kindly, our reader said of the book :-
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Very kindly, our reader said of the book :-
Predramatic Theatre
This co-authored book offers a new and contemporary approach to pre-modern drama texts and performance practice.
link.springer.com
January 6, 2026 at 10:17 AM
Inhaled in one 15hr overnighter: game-changing redefinition of the field, beautifully written, beautifully thought.
Don't agree with all of it & find it much too cautious in its exclusion of other & later forms - masques, intermezzi etc - but devastated by how much cleverer the authors are than I.
Don't agree with all of it & find it much too cautious in its exclusion of other & later forms - masques, intermezzi etc - but devastated by how much cleverer the authors are than I.
Giovanni Guerra, Grotto of Galatea, Albertina Museum, Vienna, 1601
The grotto - at Francesco I de Medici's Villa de Pratolino - was the work of architect Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608). The crumbling columns and cornice depicted in the drawing were trompe l'œil paint effects.
The grotto - at Francesco I de Medici's Villa de Pratolino - was the work of architect Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608). The crumbling columns and cornice depicted in the drawing were trompe l'œil paint effects.
January 4, 2026 at 8:02 PM
Giovanni Guerra, Grotto of Galatea, Albertina Museum, Vienna, 1601
The grotto - at Francesco I de Medici's Villa de Pratolino - was the work of architect Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608). The crumbling columns and cornice depicted in the drawing were trompe l'œil paint effects.
The grotto - at Francesco I de Medici's Villa de Pratolino - was the work of architect Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608). The crumbling columns and cornice depicted in the drawing were trompe l'œil paint effects.
A long time ago, in what I was too foolish to recognise as the good times, I made a show with Sue MacLennan - a matchless artist, a gorgeous person - to music by the despicably brilliant Jamie McCarthy.
15yrs later 3am NYE it remains brilliant. I want you to hear it.
soundcloud.com/jamie-mccart...
15yrs later 3am NYE it remains brilliant. I want you to hear it.
soundcloud.com/jamie-mccart...
Losing Control Again
Realised I'm never going to get around to recording these songs properly, so the demos will have to do!
soundcloud.com
December 31, 2025 at 2:31 AM
A long time ago, in what I was too foolish to recognise as the good times, I made a show with Sue MacLennan - a matchless artist, a gorgeous person - to music by the despicably brilliant Jamie McCarthy.
15yrs later 3am NYE it remains brilliant. I want you to hear it.
soundcloud.com/jamie-mccart...
15yrs later 3am NYE it remains brilliant. I want you to hear it.
soundcloud.com/jamie-mccart...
Annual report 2025
BEST IN SHOW
Whitby Museum Talking Archives: Circus posters
redcircle.com/shows/241751...
Masterpiece of a pod episode. A microhistory of forgotten circus acts in Victorian Whitby that delights, boggles the mind & scatters breadcrumbs deserving further study.
#skystorians 🗃️
BEST IN SHOW
Whitby Museum Talking Archives: Circus posters
redcircle.com/shows/241751...
Masterpiece of a pod episode. A microhistory of forgotten circus acts in Victorian Whitby that delights, boggles the mind & scatters breadcrumbs deserving further study.
#skystorians 🗃️
Talking Archive: Circus Posters
Listen to Talking Archives - Whitby Museum on RedCircle
redcircle.com
December 29, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Annual report 2025
BEST IN SHOW
Whitby Museum Talking Archives: Circus posters
redcircle.com/shows/241751...
Masterpiece of a pod episode. A microhistory of forgotten circus acts in Victorian Whitby that delights, boggles the mind & scatters breadcrumbs deserving further study.
#skystorians 🗃️
BEST IN SHOW
Whitby Museum Talking Archives: Circus posters
redcircle.com/shows/241751...
Masterpiece of a pod episode. A microhistory of forgotten circus acts in Victorian Whitby that delights, boggles the mind & scatters breadcrumbs deserving further study.
#skystorians 🗃️
Reposted by g.j.hilton
There is no celebration
December 29, 2025 at 3:15 AM
There is no celebration
Reposted by g.j.hilton
“They study not only the artifacts, but also the hands that forged them, the minds that conceived them and the hearts that loved them. Behind every object there is a person, a soul and a community…it gives a voice to the silence of history, restoring dignity to the forgotten”
December 21, 2025 at 10:20 AM
“They study not only the artifacts, but also the hands that forged them, the minds that conceived them and the hearts that loved them. Behind every object there is a person, a soul and a community…it gives a voice to the silence of history, restoring dignity to the forgotten”
Happy Transcriptmas @kirkwalltailors.bsky.social!
Inching festively through MANY ff of unpunctuated faded slapdash densely-repetitive C18th legal MSS comprising a catalogue of creatively-spelled Orcadian names, each requiring decoding via Black's 1000p Surnames of Scotland, a book too heavy to lift
Inching festively through MANY ff of unpunctuated faded slapdash densely-repetitive C18th legal MSS comprising a catalogue of creatively-spelled Orcadian names, each requiring decoding via Black's 1000p Surnames of Scotland, a book too heavy to lift
December 20, 2025 at 8:53 AM
Happy Transcriptmas @kirkwalltailors.bsky.social!
Inching festively through MANY ff of unpunctuated faded slapdash densely-repetitive C18th legal MSS comprising a catalogue of creatively-spelled Orcadian names, each requiring decoding via Black's 1000p Surnames of Scotland, a book too heavy to lift
Inching festively through MANY ff of unpunctuated faded slapdash densely-repetitive C18th legal MSS comprising a catalogue of creatively-spelled Orcadian names, each requiring decoding via Black's 1000p Surnames of Scotland, a book too heavy to lift
G.F.Black's slablike, megalithic 'The surnames of Scotland: their origin, meaning and history' [1946] may be the most unintentionally hilarious reference work ever.
Its liftable-only-with-Irn-Bru thousand-page bulk should have been published as 3 vols of 'M' and a slender pamphlet for rest.
Its liftable-only-with-Irn-Bru thousand-page bulk should have been published as 3 vols of 'M' and a slender pamphlet for rest.
December 20, 2025 at 2:51 AM
G.F.Black's slablike, megalithic 'The surnames of Scotland: their origin, meaning and history' [1946] may be the most unintentionally hilarious reference work ever.
Its liftable-only-with-Irn-Bru thousand-page bulk should have been published as 3 vols of 'M' and a slender pamphlet for rest.
Its liftable-only-with-Irn-Bru thousand-page bulk should have been published as 3 vols of 'M' and a slender pamphlet for rest.
Reposted by g.j.hilton
So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed
have just come across a YouTube account that has been using Sora to upload reels of fake, AI-generated “90s sitcoms” every few hours
October 7, 2025 at 12:32 PM
So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed
Reposted by g.j.hilton
The @transkribus.bsky.social "Egerton: English Secretary Hand" model is now public! app.transkribus.org/models/publi.... We have a website with sample transcriptions for different hands, information about our training conventions, and more: sites.northwestern.edu/egerton/
July 30, 2025 at 4:23 PM
The @transkribus.bsky.social "Egerton: English Secretary Hand" model is now public! app.transkribus.org/models/publi.... We have a website with sample transcriptions for different hands, information about our training conventions, and more: sites.northwestern.edu/egerton/
What I should have tried first: reverse image search.
This is the story from 2 Samuel of David & Bathsheba, a current topos in the early C16th Low Countrues.
Examples:
Lucas Gassel, 1538
International Tennis Hall of Fame Collection(!)
Herri Met de Bles, 1535-1540
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
This is the story from 2 Samuel of David & Bathsheba, a current topos in the early C16th Low Countrues.
Examples:
Lucas Gassel, 1538
International Tennis Hall of Fame Collection(!)
Herri Met de Bles, 1535-1540
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
December 19, 2025 at 11:41 AM
What I should have tried first: reverse image search.
This is the story from 2 Samuel of David & Bathsheba, a current topos in the early C16th Low Countrues.
Examples:
Lucas Gassel, 1538
International Tennis Hall of Fame Collection(!)
Herri Met de Bles, 1535-1540
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
This is the story from 2 Samuel of David & Bathsheba, a current topos in the early C16th Low Countrues.
Examples:
Lucas Gassel, 1538
International Tennis Hall of Fame Collection(!)
Herri Met de Bles, 1535-1540
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
(Inspired by @jonathanfoyle.bsky.social's talk earlier this week)
Sold by Tremont (Sudbury, MA) 2022 for $25k as '16th century English old master painting depicting an Elizabethan courtyard'. www.tremontauctions.com/auction-lot/...
C16th, ok, but English? Nah. Surely more Bruges than Blackfriars.
Sold by Tremont (Sudbury, MA) 2022 for $25k as '16th century English old master painting depicting an Elizabethan courtyard'. www.tremontauctions.com/auction-lot/...
C16th, ok, but English? Nah. Surely more Bruges than Blackfriars.
December 19, 2025 at 6:55 AM
(Inspired by @jonathanfoyle.bsky.social's talk earlier this week)
Sold by Tremont (Sudbury, MA) 2022 for $25k as '16th century English old master painting depicting an Elizabethan courtyard'. www.tremontauctions.com/auction-lot/...
C16th, ok, but English? Nah. Surely more Bruges than Blackfriars.
Sold by Tremont (Sudbury, MA) 2022 for $25k as '16th century English old master painting depicting an Elizabethan courtyard'. www.tremontauctions.com/auction-lot/...
C16th, ok, but English? Nah. Surely more Bruges than Blackfriars.
Phenomenal and mouthwatering archive - especially essay and lecture drafts - of the papers of William Waller (1821–1897) dating to his time running #York private asylum, ‘The Retreat’.
With Pickering & Chatto aba.org.uk/assets/catal...
With Pickering & Chatto aba.org.uk/assets/catal...
December 17, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Phenomenal and mouthwatering archive - especially essay and lecture drafts - of the papers of William Waller (1821–1897) dating to his time running #York private asylum, ‘The Retreat’.
With Pickering & Chatto aba.org.uk/assets/catal...
With Pickering & Chatto aba.org.uk/assets/catal...
And introducing: "Timothy Thumpwell (a Drummer Boy with the enormous pay of a Shilling a Day, one Shirt, and Two Suits of Clothes)"
Iffy online sources claim the date for PUNCHINELLO VAMPIRE! is 1823 but Jan. 24th didn't fall on a Wed until 1827 (1838... etc)
Source: www.flickr.com/photos/ldodd...
Iffy online sources claim the date for PUNCHINELLO VAMPIRE! is 1823 but Jan. 24th didn't fall on a Wed until 1827 (1838... etc)
Source: www.flickr.com/photos/ldodd...
December 16, 2025 at 7:47 AM
And introducing: "Timothy Thumpwell (a Drummer Boy with the enormous pay of a Shilling a Day, one Shirt, and Two Suits of Clothes)"
Iffy online sources claim the date for PUNCHINELLO VAMPIRE! is 1823 but Jan. 24th didn't fall on a Wed until 1827 (1838... etc)
Source: www.flickr.com/photos/ldodd...
Iffy online sources claim the date for PUNCHINELLO VAMPIRE! is 1823 but Jan. 24th didn't fall on a Wed until 1827 (1838... etc)
Source: www.flickr.com/photos/ldodd...
Came horrifyingly close to overlooking this festive highlight and would not have forgiven myself.
Tickets: safely booked
Sigh of relief: huge, breathed
Homemade mince pies: pending
Tickets: safely booked
Sigh of relief: huge, breathed
Homemade mince pies: pending
December 14, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Came horrifyingly close to overlooking this festive highlight and would not have forgiven myself.
Tickets: safely booked
Sigh of relief: huge, breathed
Homemade mince pies: pending
Tickets: safely booked
Sigh of relief: huge, breathed
Homemade mince pies: pending