Dr Mark Purcell
@CamLibResearch
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Director, Research & Collections, Cambridge University Library. Bye-Fellow, Pembroke College. Proctor. AIL Panel. Country House Library (2017). Private views.
Cambridge, UK
Joined June 2019
✨This book was once owned by Jane Austen! ✨ There are very few books that Jane Austen is known to have owned, making this one at Cambridge University Library incredibly special. We're delighted to show it to you today, on her 250th birthday! #JaneAusten250
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What a curious chair... "Omnis sapientia a Domino Deo est" Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 004: The Dover Bible, Volume II; 12th century; f.66v @ParkerLibCCCC @CorpusCambridge
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✨Conserving our copy of Shakespeare’s First Folio from 1623 ✨ Senior Conservator Deborah Farndell has delicately reattached loose pages and repaired fragile tears in this wonderful, rare, and iconic volume. Images 1 & 2: before conservation #Shakespeare #BookConservatione
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At Dendera - cow head capitals for the goddess Hathor.
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So different and yet so similar to Giles Gilbert Scott’s great building @theUL in Cambridge …
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Astonishing.
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December 1, 1934: Leningrad mayor Sergei Kirov was assassinated. Joseph Stalin used it as an excuse to begin the Great Terror of 1934 to 1938.
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#OTD in 1633, Isabella, who once ruled as co-Sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands with her husband Albert, died in Brussels. Here she is wandering in the gardens of the grand Coudenberg Palace in Brussels.
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In the library at Chatsworth for several centuries
St Etheldreda (Æthelthryth), Northumbrian queen, and Abbess of Ely died on 23rd June 679 CE: 'Imago s[an]cte Atheldrythe abb[atisse] ac perpetue virigin[is]'. BL Add 49598; Benedictional of Æthelwold ; 963-984 CE; England, S; f.90v @BLMedieval
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Winter sunshine gating, with lamp and overthrow, at Romsey Abbey. Many a flourish to be enjoyed here.
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Beautiful 'B'(eatus) at the beginning of Psalm 1, depicting a young man with a basket of grapes 🍇 #ManuscriptMonday Bodleian Library MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 76; Psalter and New Testament (Volume III of the ‘Ranshofen Bible’); c. 1140-1150; Austria, Salzburg (?); f.1v @BDLSS
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The 1178 Ranshofen Gospels give big Monday energy: three evangelists turn up to work missing key tools: no pen, wrong ink, no parchment.... only St John is prepared for the day. A medieval reminder that some Mondays haven’t changed! MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 60 #MedievalMonday
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What a splendid picture. Back in the day I was an Assistant Organist in this very splendid church.
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Black British Voices: Black British Collections. We are forming a community panel of Black British & Black Northern Irish individuals to help shape its 2027 exhibition & events programme. 🗓️ Deadline: 14 Dec 2025 🔗Find out more about getting involved: https://t.co/LzrOs8BVU1
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Noah's longship ark BnF MS Latin 8865; Lambertus de Sancto Audomaro , Liber Floridus; 13th century; f.51 @GallicaBnF
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A wonderful building - for Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, a grandson of William the Conqueror and brother of King Stephen.
Recently visited St Cross Hospital outside Winchester. England’s oldest almshouse, founded 1130s, still going. The church is late Romanesque transitioning to early Gothic, and completely sublime. My thanks to @GeorgeTrefgarne for the visit!
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Write an essay to win £500 📝 The Gordon Duff Prize is now accepting proposals on the science of books and manuscripts and the arts relating to them. Find out more and how to enter: https://t.co/8JyFSY5evT
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