Professor Hedgehog's Journal

Dr Ducarel Writes to Dr Watson

Posted on 01/01/2017 by carolinemmurray

Whether history has been kind to Andrew Coltée Ducarel (1713–85) rather depends on which source you use. Francis Grose and Horace Walpole seem both to have loathed him (but didn’t the latter loathe almost everyone?). Others, including John Nichols, have had more pleasant things to say about him. Why should we care? Continue reading →

Posted in Bibliography, Biography, Botany, Gardens, History, London, Natural history, Printing and Publishing | Tagged Andrew Ducarel, garden history, Garden Museum, herbals, horticulture, Lambeth, plant collections, Tradescant, William Watson | 10 Comments

Plant of the Month: December

Posted on 17/12/2016 by carolinemmurray

For the avoidance of doubt (as we lawyers like to say), I’m talking here about European mistletoe: Viscum album (Linnaeus). There are about 70–100 species worldwide, as well as New World and southern hemisphere ‘mistletoes’ of quite different species, which are far too complicated for me to dabble in. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Botany, Cambridge, Gardens, History, Literature, Natural history | Tagged 'The Mistletoe Bough', Christmas, gardens, mistletoe, myths and legends, Victorian Web | 2 Comments

Object of the Month: December

Posted on 11/12/2016 by carolinemmurray

Delftware tile with a skating scene I bought a pack of these Christmas cards at the Fitzwilliam Museum shop a couple of weeks ago (don’t all rush, because sadly they are showing as out of stock on the website at the moment), partly because it’s a nice winter scene to send to my more secular-minded friends, but mostly because I love the insouciance of the laid-back, leaning-back skaters. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, London, Museums and Galleries | Tagged Christmas cards, Fitzwilliam Museum, Hendrick Avercamp, ice-skating, Netherlands, skates | 1 Comment

Admiral Russell’s Frame

Posted on 01/12/2016 by carolinemmurray

Am I alone in having only the vaguest possible understanding of European history in the ‘long’ eighteenth century (1688-1789)? It is said that children these days leap from the Tudors to the Nazis (a cynic would say same difference), but even in my youth we seemed to go from the Hanoverian succession to the French Revolution without pausing much in between. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, History, Museums and Galleries | Tagged battle of La Hogue, earl of Orford, Fitzwilliam Museum, Russell Frame | 1 Comment

Object Of The Month: November

Posted on 24/11/2016 by carolinemmurray

In the Western Christian churches, Advent is the period of four weeks (or so) before Christmas Day, beginning on the Sunday closest to the feast of St Andrew on 30 November. This year it falls on 27 November, and may or may not coincide with an exciting event in the wider Hedgehog family (though, as far as I know, a star has not risen in the east on this occasion). Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Cambridge, History, Music, Printing and Publishing, Venice | Tagged Advent, Advent calendars, Christmas, Fitzwilliam Museum | 3 Comments

The Extraordinary Lusignans

Posted on 20/11/2016 by carolinemmurray

I haven’t read or watched Game of Thrones, but, from what I gather, the story of how the obscure Lusignan family, minor nobility from Poitou in France, ended up as kings of Jerusalem, Armenia and Cyprus would fit in quite well as an episode or two. Admittedly, they had an encouraging start, as the Lusignan line (whose castle is depicted in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry) was begun by the water-sprite Melusine, who, unknown to her husband Raymond, had a serpent’s tail, and appears in the form of a dragon flying over the castle when a member of the family is about to die. Continue reading →

Posted in Biography, History, Venice | Tagged Caterina Corner, Cilician Armenia, Cyprus, Jerusalem, Lusignan dynasty | 5 Comments

Messing About In Boats

Posted on 17/11/2016 by carolinemmurray

The origins of the Regata Storica in Venice are unclear. One version is that it commemorates the occasion on which twelve poor but honest and beautiful girls, who had been given dowries by the state and were about to be married en bloc at the cathedral of Venice, San Pietro di Castello, were abducted by pirates. The outraged citizens leapt into their boats and rowed so vigorously that that they caught up with the pirates, rescuing the girls. Their skill and speed in rowing was subsequently commemorated in races up the Grand Canal on the first Sunday of every September. Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Biography, History, Museums and Galleries, Venice | Tagged Caterina Cornaro, history of Cyprus, Regata storica, Venice | 4 Comments

Plant of the Month: November 2016

Posted on 13/11/2016 by carolinemmurray

I was parking my car outside a friend’s house in leafy western Cambridge when something squidged from above on to the bonnet and disintegrated most messily. I opened the car door and was assailed by a most appalling smell of vomit. What on earth was happening? The aftermath of a wild party for the local jeunesse dorée? An outbreak of projectile vomiting by the local pigeons or magpies? The truth became evident as I picked my way gingerly across the pavement – the ripe fruits of a mature Ginkgo biloba tree were raining down from the branches and splattering on whatever lay beneath. Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Cambridge, Exploration, Gardens, London, Natural history | Tagged Engelbert Kaempfer, fossil trees, Ginkgo biloba, Ginkgo tree, Joseph Banks, Kew Gardens | 18 Comments

Plantin and Moretus

Posted on 30/10/2016 by carolinemmurray

christophe-plantin-rubens-1630-36-115x150 Not quite a Proustian moment, as no madeleines were dunked in lime-flower tea, but the other day a friend with unexpected time on his hands in Belgium enquired of the world via Twitter what was interesting in Antwerp. Immediately, I was assailed by memory, and tweeted back ‘Plantin-Moretus house’ (which the spell-checker helpfully turned into ‘Planting Moretus house’). Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Bibliography, Biography, Gardens, History, Museums and Galleries, Printing and Publishing, Venice | Tagged Antwerp, Arthur Rank Hospice, Christophe Plantin, history of printing, Jan Moretus, Peter Paul Rubens, Philip II, Plantin-Moretus Museum, Polyglot Bible | 7 Comments

Plant Of The Month: October

Posted on 20/10/2016 by carolinemmurray

This may sound a perverse choice, given all the possibilities, not least autumn-flowering bulbs and corms (and even ivy, the flowers of which are still attracting bees and butterflies), but here goes, anyway. Continue reading →

Posted in Botany, Gardens, Natural history | Tagged daisy family, pellitory, plant of the month | 6 Comments