Not a Lion

Posted on 13/05/2017 by carolinemmurray

The Twitter community of medieval historians have a recurring thread called #notalion. I ventured a humble contribution myself after our jaunt to Lisbon last year, but today I have come across a horde (herd, pack, pride) of not-quite-lions, all conveniently close together in and around the duomo of Modena, where we are spending a few days before moving on to La Serenissima. (It’s a tough job, being rude about the Biennale, but somebody has to do it.) Continue reading →

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A Skeleton in the Cupboard?

Posted on 06/05/2017 by carolinemmurray

One of the things I’m doing at the moment is browsing through nineteenth-century issues of the Gardeners’ Chronicle (online – God bless the Biodiversity Heritage Library!), cross-checking references to the Cambridge University Botanic Garden. A lot of the material is predictable – notes on the Garden Syndicate reports to the Senate, short articles about developments in the garden, a researcher’s notes on earthworms – but occasionally something pops up which is truly bizarre. Take page 380 of New Series vol. 19 (1883). Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, History, Natural history, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Object of the Month: April 2017

Posted on 27/04/2017 by carolinemmurray

Over the Easter weekend, the children who live opposite were applying the life lesson of the Parable of the Talents to raise money for charity. Their school had given them £1, which they had to make grow, and the options were (a) to do an Easter egg hunt in their minuscule front garden, (b) buy a home-baked chocolate brownie, or (c) buy a shell. I went for options (b) – excellent! – and, guided by some strange recherche du temps perdu – (c). Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Plant of the Month: April 2017

Posted on 24/04/2017 by carolinemmurray

The forget-me-not is one of those plants which are ‘only a …’. But like so many apparently over-familiar pieces of nature, it repays closer examination. It must be one of the most widespread (and toughest) plants in the northern hemisphere, grows in the least promising conditions, can reproduce two or three times a year, and can over-winter except in the harshest of conditions – but it is precisely this resilience and profligacy that cause it to be regarded almost as a weed. Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Gardens, History, Literature, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Only Connect

Posted on 20/04/2017 by carolinemmurray

As I never cease to remind everyone, everything is connected to everything else. This was once quoted in the immortal Yes Minister: as I recall, Sir Humphrey asks Bernard ‘Who said that?’; Bernard: ‘The Cabinet Secretary?’; Sir H: ‘Almost right, Bernard – it was Lenin.’ Last week’s instance was the unexpected link between the Magnolia figo in the botanic garden at Lucca and a funerary monument in the church of Santa Croce in Florence.

Continue reading →
Posted in Art, Botany, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Lucca

Posted on 14/04/2017 by carolinemmurray

I never quite understood what was so great about St Martin slicing his cloak in two and giving half to a beggar: why didn’t he just hand over the whole cloak and be done with it? He was a soldier – would he have to account to his superiors for a missing cloak, whereas half a cloak he could get away with? Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Exploration, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries, Natural history | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

William Cobbett, Nurseryman

Posted on 03/04/2017 by carolinemmurray

Though the constant thread running through his adult life was radical journalism (for which he spent most of the years 1810–12 in Newgate prison), William Cobbett (1763–1835) had many careers: farmer, soldier, grammarian, language teacher, author, economist, printer, publisher, Member of Parliament – and nurseryman. A plant and seed catalogue published by him (from internal evidence, one of a very frequent series, this issue dating to 4 December in a year after 1826) has just come to light in the archive which I am helping to sort through, and it is completely characteristic of the man. Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Gardens, History, Natural history, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Madonnas and Miracles

Posted on 01/04/2017 by carolinemmurray

I’ve recently had the pleasure and privilege of not one but three ‘private views’, with talks, of the new exhibition, ‘Madonnas and Miracles’, on at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, until 4 June. I’ve also popped in several times for a further mooch round, and therefore can confidently pronounce that I really, really like it. It’s not an amazing, stunning blockbuster like last year’s incredible ‘Colour’, and there’s not (thankfully?) quite so much to take in, but it is just as interesting, and benefits from a similar multi-disciplinary approach. And it also has, in spades, that potentially ambiguous virtue, charm. Continue reading →

Posted in Archaeology, Art, Cambridge, History, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Plant of the Month: March 2017

Posted on 26/03/2017 by carolinemmurray

I have to confess that I had hoped that the Persian ironwood tree, Parrotia persica, had obtained its botanical name (first applied by C.A. von Meyer in 1831) because it was observed to be a favourite perch for parrots, but alas, real life isn’t like that, and the eponymous Parrot turns out to be a German called Friedrich Parrot. Since the German for ‘parrot’ is ‘Papagei’ (as in Papageno, which had never occurred to me), there isn’t even a secondary connection, alas. Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Exploration, Gardens, History, Natural history | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

First Catch Your Unicorn

Posted on 18/03/2017 by carolinemmurray

After reading a depressing story about the number of songbirds illegally netted on the British RAF bases in Cyprus, in order to create a dish sanctified (as the hunters claim) by centuries of Cypriot ‘culture’, I was thinking back to the dotterel and the other birds eaten during the medieval period, from roasted swan down to raw quail (feathers and all) and larks’ tongues. Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliography, History, London, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments