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Dr Mark Purcell

@camlibresearch.bsky.social
4.8K followers 1.1K following 887 posts

Director, Research and Collections, Cambridge University Libraries and Archives and CUL Research Institute; Bye-Fellow, Pembroke College, Cambridge; FSA FRHistS; University Deputy Proctor; The Country House Library (Yale, 2017); private views

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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Now prowling Risorgimento Genoa. Left in disgust a vastly grandiose café which blithely informed me they were cash only (weird behaviour I more associate with Germany, and not with a place selling €30 cakes in Italy). Instead in a back street bar that takes payment in any reasonable form. Good.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Two course lunch.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
More of the sixteenth-century Villa del Principe, Genoa - epitome of shabby chic, and now beleaguered between the main station and the elevated section of the autostrada. Genoa needs its own Big Dig.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Despite all the baroque swagger, Genoa not wholly without some medieval swagger.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Genoa: very good at baroque.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Animals in Genoese palaces today. If I were a faun I would, I’m sure, need to get my hooves gilded.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Genoese naval tapestries. In the sixteenth-century Villa del Principe, for the Doria family, and quite astonishing.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
The Palazzo Reale in Genoa, earlier today, and very wonderful.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
In the Grand Hotel Bristol in Genoa. Most satisfactory.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Go, then.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This afternoon in Lichfield. A fine city.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Lecturing at Chatsworth today.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Still summer in Cambridge
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Today for one of my regular Sunday walks around the Fitzwilliam. These three caught my eye today
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Last weekend in Shoreham-by-Sea.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Walking to work. A fine morning
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This weekend in Shoreham. Spectacular Romanesque church.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Today at Houghton - looking splendid in the autumn sunshine. Sir Robert Walpole’s library.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
First dinner of the new academic year.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Planning New Year travel. Anyone know where?
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
I think the last time I saw this wonderful picture - Jan Steen’s Burgomeister of Delft - it was still in Wales, at Penrhyn Castle (sold to the Rjiksmuseum for $11.9m in 2004).
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Always good to pass through a library when on my travels.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Yesterday to the chained library at Zutphen.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Beavering about at Belvoir.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Reading, with pleasure and profit, Deborah Clarke’s book on the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh - the first on this very remarkable building.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Back on the Gulf of Kotor, a fortnight on.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
In Mostar
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Today to the monastery at Ostrog, Montenegro. Perched in an unbelievably vertiginous location hundreds of meters up a cliff, with long lines of pilgrims waiting to venerate the relics of St Basil.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Cat wants fish
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Fish!
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Sunday morning walk.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
By the seaside.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Today in Kosovo.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Today at Morača, founded in 1252. Montenegro, and spectacular.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
And also a proper Romanesque cathedral.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Now in Kotor. A new country (at least for me).
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Received in audience by the Rector. Don’t tell the Ragusans but it’s a bit Toytown Venice. I think me may be bored as he’s locked in the Palace for the duration of his month in office.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Looking out for Uskok raiders from the walls of Ragusa. All quiet so far.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
A demanding afternoon, but someone has to do it …
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Galleys sighted off Ragusa. Could this be a preliminary to a Venetian attack?
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Back home.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Ok the south of Antwerp on a Sunday morning.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Labore et constantia. Where am I?
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Back in Antwerp.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
At the Ferens Gallery in Hull. Good pictures.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Where am I?
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Sitting in the Society of Antiquaries in London, enjoying ice-cold aircon on a sticky evening and reflecting that I must be unusual in having a close association with with two organisations with a charter from and commemorating with gratitude poor old Queen Mary (plus the Ants, with her portrait).
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
Yesterday at Melford Hall. Fine library interior by Thomas Hopper.
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Dr Mark Purcell @camlibresearch.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Quite like my little corner of Cambridge. Stormy, though.
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