Francis Jenkinson, University Librarian at Cambridge between 1889 and 1923, was born on this day in 1853. Here he seems to have found time away from his books & entomological specimens to have fun with a well-behaved dog. @theULSpecColl Portraits.c.71.

Archbishop Matthew Parker was born #OTD in 1504. He left the bulk of his collection to @ParkerLibCCCC but in 1574 gave us 100 books, including this new edition of the Gospels in Anglo Saxon type (1571). The notes are by Abraham Wheelock, first Cambridge Prof. of Arabic. UL 1.24.9

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Our latest blog features a recent acquisition: a Parisian journal, in medieval style, inspired by the 1900 Paris Exposition. Read all about it here:

Thanks to @OrkneyLibrary we are aware that today is #CowAppreciationDay! Our collection includes this glorious early twentieth-century book of children's poetry (marketed as 'untearable'), entitled simply 'MOO COWS'. @theUL 1907.11.60. 🐮

Our latest blog, by Munby Fellow Dr Joshua Fitzgerald, focuses on nineteenth-century efforts to translate the Bible into Nahuatl (or Mexican). Read it here!

Our latest blog post is by Beckett Thornber (MA Conservation Studies student @westdeancollege) who has constructed a model of a late medieval folded manuscript, inspired by an example in our Curious Cures exhibition on medieval medicine! .

Digitised in full:

The French theologian Theodore Beza was born #OTD in 1519. In 1581 he presented us with one of our greatest treasures, the so-called Codex Bezae: a copy of the New Testament in Greek & Latin, written around the year 400 & one of the earliest surviving Biblical manuscripts.

Mumtaz Mahal, empress consort of the Mughal Empire, died #OTD in 1631. This little pamphlet (costing sixpence) was issued in 1823 to coincide with the display in London of an ivory model of the Taj Mahal, her funerary monument. @theulspeccoll Pam.5.82.155.

Curiously, Joan of Arc & Voltaire both died #OTD (1431 & 1778). Voltaire composed La Pucelle d'Orleans (the Maid of Orleans) to satirise the not yet canonised Joan & its bawdy content saw it banned across Europe. This early edition (1762) is illustrated by Gravelot. Syn.6.76.5.

It's Ascension Day, commemorating the Christian belief of the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven. Our MS Dd.4.17, a 14th-century Book of Hours probably made in the East Midlands, has a great image of Jesus' feet about to disappear into a cloud. #ascensionday

Lovely visit yesterday from a group of Australian Jane Austen enthusiasts, who enjoyed seeing a variety of first editions, a book from Jane's own library, and a letter in her own hand. Plus, of course, 'Jane Austen in Australia'! #janeausten

In our latest blog, @ciditcharlotte talks about her engagement with a fifteenth-century manuscript of Christine de Pizan, now at Newnham College & recently digitised.

Beautiful botanical details inside & out in this recent acquisition from @Quaritch: Henrietta Moriarty's 'Viridarium: coloured plates of greenhouse plants' (London 1806), produced in part to free her from destitution after the early death of her dissolute husband. UL 8000.d.1621

The first #Pope Leo, known as Leo the Great, who reigned 440-461 & was the first to be buried in St Peter's Basilica. This copy of his sermons (#Venice, 1482) carries this portrait by the Pico Master, appropriately within an initial L for Laudem. CUL Inc.3.B.3.43[1499]. #popeleo

RT @theUL: The Conclave to elect the 267th Pope begins today. This broadside, probably printed in Venice, shows plans for getting food and….

The typographer Stanley Morison was born #OTD in 1889. We are lucky to look after his personal library & archive, including the gold medal he was awarded by @BibSoc in 1948 'for distinguished services to bibliography'. It carries images of a scribe & a printing press.

So, it's Elizabethan England, and you need to know how to cure STDs, extract bullets, and live to be a hundred? Well, we have got the manuscript for you. Read more in our new #CuriousCures blogpost:.

RT @SpillaneHarry: Listen Now 📻🎤. 'Biblical Typology' on BBC Radio 4 'In Our Time' with the wonderful @MiriERubin (@QMUL) and Sophie Lunn-R….

Our latest blog explores some late-Victorian accounts of boating, part of the @Cambridge_Uni Cruising Club archives. Some of the accounts are beautifully illuminated, like medieval manuscripts!