For International Cat Day, here’s my favourite caricature from ‘Familiar illustrations of the language of mathematics or a new picture-alphabet for well-behaved undergraduates’ (1850) by John Lewis Roget.

🐱 It’s μ (“mu”).

(This is Trinity’s copy: 307.a.85.17)

🪐 Last Friday was volvelletastic! Looking forward to getting these in the display cases.

📖 These are all from books in the Whipple Library collection.

Well… hello there.

A “cat-a-mountain” from Claude Perrault’s Memoirs for a Natural History of Animals (1688)

🔍 (Whipple Library: STORE 76:3)

Just when I thought I’d found all the pressed flowers in the library, this gem shows up. 🌸

It’s a herbarium from 1833! 🌼

(Crewe MS 69) 🌿

My favourite pages from ‘Tradescant’s Orchard’ (C17th), a manuscript I discovered for the first time just today! 🍎

Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1461: digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/8350...

There’s even a miniature marionette version of the Hellbrunn fountains in the Marionette Museum!

So so adorable!

📍 Marionettenmuseum, Fortress Hohensalzburg.

One of my main reasons for visiting Salzburg was the chance to see the trick fountains at Hellbrunn! ⛲️

Used to entertain (and sometimes annoy) guests with their hidden jets of water, these fountains represent one of the more brilliant and playful aspects of renaissance/mannerist gardens.

Thoroughly enjoyed these paintings of early modern subjects of nature!

Oh, and the stuffed unicorn.

📍 Schloss Hellbrunn, Salzburg.