iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Emma Mason

The French Republican Calendar @sansculottid.es · 29/04/2026

Today is Primidi the 11th of Floréal in the year 234. Floréal is the month of flowers. Today we celebrate rhubarb. #JacobinDay More information on rhubarb

An old time-y illustration of a Rhubarb.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 06/09/2025

A wonderful afternoon at Whitworth Art Gallery seeing the Turner: In Light and Shade exhibition. I still have a thousand things to learn about prints and engravings for my PhD, but this was a fantastic exploration of print as an art form in dialogue with Turner's paintings

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Forgot you can only post 4 pics. Sorry Bluesky, it's been a while. HERE is the Palladian bridge. Worth scrolling down for I think

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

The Palladian bridge (final pic) was designed by the 'architect earl' who married Mary Fitzwilliam and brought the families together.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

PhDing and conferencing in and around Bath this week, starting with a visit to the fab Wilton House. Richard Fitzwilliam, whose collections are the subject of my PhD, was cousin to the Earls of Pembroke and this was (and still is) their family seat.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

A lovely sunset from the hottest train in the world while attempting to write an abstract for a conference

Photo of a lovely orange sunset that has cast itself through the clouds. In the window reflection you can see train seats and my laptop on my lap

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Reposted by Emma Mason

The Georgian Lords @georgianlords.bsky.social · 08/03/2025

In case you missed it, earlier this week Robin Eagles of the Georgian Lords posted on the career of Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, Bonnie Prince Charlie's more diplomatic younger brother... #HistParl #skystorians historyofparliament.com/2025/03/06/h...

historyofparliament.com

The Last of the Jacobites: Henry Benedict - The History of Parliament

Henry Benedict, Cardinal York (1725-1807), born 300 years ago this March, was the last member of the royal family to take an active role in a papal Conclave,

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

Goodness Emanuel, what a very large... family tree you have 😳

Image taken from a book on the Revolutions of Portugal of an engraving of the royal family tree. The figure of Emanuel is dressed in royal regalia and laid down with his head coquettishly propped in his hand. The rest of the family tree, drawn as a tree with branches emerges from the middle of his robes in an unsubtle and very phallic way

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Having a wonderful week properly immersed in the Fitzwilliam Museum collection at the heart of my PhD. And as an [adopted] Manc, the idea that I could pick up free bay leaves from someone's garden wall and they would actually be bay leaves is just lovely. #18thc

Photo of a selection of 18th century books on a table with a red cloth. In the top left are some that are unbound and in the original blue paper covers. Most are bound in light brown mottled calfskin.

Front cover of a book with a green cover, a gilt copy of Louis XVIII's coat of arms (3 fleur de lys in the centre, with a crown above), and gilt edges

A close up of marbled paper. The centre of the marbling is beige, with purple, blue and yellow around it

A picture of a small wooden box with fresh bay leaves in, sat on a garden wall and with a sign in saying 'help yourself to bay leaves'

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

PhD life really does seem to be sitting in a variety of venues with a variety of beverages and a laptop. (Back in Cambridge, pretty pictures of books coming soon)

Photo of my laptop on a pub table with a large glass of red wine next to it. The laptop screen shows the time as 17.26, the weather in Cambridge as 13 degrees, and the picture is of some 18th century committee meeting minutes, with 'Adjourned' written in a beautiful hand.

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Reposted by Emma Mason

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 23/02/2025

We've created a new Starter Pack of #History institutes and research centres in the UK & Ireland bit.ly/3F3Eo2M Please do share. There will be gaps and recommendations are welcome. We hope this pack helps you keep in touch with work by and for historians in the UK & Ireland #Skystorians.

bit.ly

UK institutes and research centres for historians

Join the conversation

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

A eulogy with a brew, who could ask for more

Photo of my set up in a coffee shop, with a half drunk cup of loose leaf tea, notebooks and pink headphones, and my silver laptop. On the laptop is the website Gallica with the funerary oration for Queen Marie-Joséphine of France

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Lovely day of research at @britishlibrary.bsky.social which has turned up the wonderful news that in 1800 Fleet Street had a Nandos

Image of a book published in 1800. The page shown is an alphabetical list of coffee houses in London and their location. One line says "Nandoes, fleet-street"

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Dear hive mind, does anyone know what the word underlined in black might be? Context of the sentence: follows a request to dedicate work to the King ('Elle' referring to 'sa Majesté'), and is broadly saying I hope he will have the goodness to hear a request from me, a stranger devoted to his cause

Cropped photo of an 18th century letter in French

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

I thought threatening women you don't know on the internet was frowned upon

Screengrab from my Duolingo 2024 in review. The cartoon green owl has sparkles in its eyes and looks angelic as it leaps from a blue and pastel background. Underneath the text says "Yes! You're a top 3% learner this year. You're safe from Duo. For now. One misstep and you'll be sorry."

I'm sorry, what?

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

Also trying to work out how on earth I can get to the Musée Carnavalet before February. It closes on my wedding day... pre-mini-moon??! www.carnavalet.paris.fr/expositions/...

carnavalet.paris.fr

Paris 1793-1794

Pour la première fois, le musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris, de référence mondiale pour ses collections de la Révolution française, prend le parti de singula

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

After a week of something that felt a lot like covid, my brain feels capable of getting back into my French reading practice

Photo of two copies of Émile Zola's "La Terre" ("Earth"), one in French, one in English. The books are laid on my pale blue oodie with cartoon penguins on. The French version is older, and the cover has block colour sections of bright yellow, red, orange and green and a black and white image of a historic French village with a Christian cross visible sticking up from the ground, a cart piled with hay, villagers at work and stone houses. The English version is an Oxford World Classics edition, and the cover has a single white colour block 3/4 of the way down with the title details. The main image is detail from 'The Sower' by Van Gogh (1888) showing the sun on the horizon, and a wheat field with wheat growing in the background and in the foreground a man sowing seeds against a field of blues, whites and oranges.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

It will be fascinating to see if anything more can be uncovered about how these got to England. Nothing is known between 1789 and 1844... 'rescued' by an émigré from the Revolution? Sold to a British collector as plenty of Revolutionary loot was? www.theguardian.com/world/2024/n...

theguardian.com

‘It’s been a lot of detective work’: Madame de Pompadour’s £1m wall lights discovered in Yorkshire hotel

Four gilt-bronze sconces that lit up home of King Louis XV’s mistress are set to go on sale at Sotheby’s in December

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Some lovely copies of Mrs Beeton floating around Hay. If nothing else it would be a great weight for a workout, that girl is CHUNKY

Photo of me holding a copy of Mrs Beeton's Houseld Management in a Hay-on-Wye bookshop. In the background are full bookshelves and a terracotta red patterned carpet. The book is leather quarterbound and we're looking at the spine, the width of which is at least the distance between the tip of a thumb and little finger if your palm was fully spread.

Photo of the frontispiece of Mrs Beeton's Household Management. The background is the same. On the left hand page is an illustrated image of 8 dishes from the book on a pale yellow background, none of them looking very appetising. On the right hand page is the frontispiece, advertising among other things that the book has 32 plates in colour and nearly 700 illustrations

Photo of a random double page spread in Mrs Beeton's Household Management. Again the background is the same. The recipes listed are all for different versions of cooking eel, including 'Eels, fried', 'Eels, fried, à la tartare', and 'Eels, stewed'

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Oh no no no. That's embarrassing just to think about, I'm sorry you had to experience it!

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

I don't blame him. Fanny Burney's description of her mastectomy is one of the most vivid and horrifying things I've ever read

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Hard yes to this. I used to work on a heritage site when I was maybe 25 and older volunteers would often tell me I looked like I was on work experience. Well I'm duty manager and in charge of the site today so....

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Oh Hay there! Birthday book weekend is off to a very sunny start in Hay-On-Wye

View from the top of Hay castle looking out across the town of Hay-on-Wye and green fields beyond. The sky is blue with very few clouds and the sun is shining down on the creamy houses, trees and fields

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Not yet. I imagine very conscious self-fashioning and perhaps a sense of their own importance come into it, but until I've spent more time with Fitz (and Cicero) I shall keep an open mind!

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Spending some of this evening typing up scattered notes from my first visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum and into the world of the Viscount. Love this tidbit of the nerdy nicknames Fitzwilliam and Abbé Vinson gave each other. 18th century rich boy [middle-aged man] geekery.

Photo of my notebook with pencil-written notes which were neat several pages earlier but here are a bit more scrawly. The only full sentence visible reads 'Abbé Vinson - RF's BFF - called each other Cicero and Atticus'

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Yummy little bit of Sunday antiquing to bring home this 1930s cabinet. A perfect house for some* of our overflowing books *many books remain overflowing

Photo of a 1930s oak cabinet with doors. The doors have glass panes and small gold coloured handles. The back of the cabinet is mirrored. It's looking a little grubby in this picture as we'd just bought it.

The cleaned up cabinet standing on our beige carpeted living room floor and against one of our cream coloured walls. The cabinet now has a selection of science fiction paperbacks and books from the 'Penguin Essentials' series, along with a small purple ceramic sheep on the top shelf and a small globe on the bottom shelf

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

The project is looking at Viscount Fitzwilliam's collecting habits during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic years and his networks with French émigrés and counter-revolutionary circles in London. The photo is of the gorgeous Founder's Library at the Fitz, aka PhD base-camp.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Hey Bluesky! I've been dormant on here for a little while so by way of re-introduction... I'm an 18th-century historian and have just started a part-time AHRC funded PhD working with The Courtauld Institute of Art and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge...

Photo of the shelves in the Founder's Library at the Fitztwilliam Museum, Cambridge. Wooden shelving runs from floor to ceiling, each shelf filled with books in eighteenth and nineteenth century bindings (often calf-skin) in shades of brown, black, red, green and gold.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 12/01/2024

First week complete as Knowledge Exchange Manager at Sheffield Uni. I can tell you, giving this little nerd responsibility for the History, English and Music departments is the route to an unreasonable level of enthusiasm on my part. Sheffield-folk, come chat!

Picture of my University of Sheffield staff card

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Reposted by Emma Mason

Chris Bertram @crookedfootball.bsky.social · 29/12/2023

Good to see an actual expert being given space. Sadly, politicians, journalists and voters will continue recycling the same myths and anyone who insists on the facts will be labelled a denialist by the migration-crisis mongers

theguardian.com

Everything politicians tell you about immigration is wrong. This is how it actually works | Hein de ...

Escaping poverty, violence and the climate crisis are factors, but the main driver is rich societies demanding cheap labour, says migration scholar Hein de Haas

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 23/11/2023

Happy birthday to me and Miley Cyrus. Born on the very same day; the body swap comedy everyone* is waiting for. *no-one

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 13/11/2023

Youngest sister's (8, nearly 9) Christmas list

On a piece of paper she's written Ho Ho Ho as a border, and 'Dear Santa, for Christmas I would like: axe, swords, fighting eghipment, giant parmaviolets, giant swizzlestuff, lollypops, lots of sweets, giant sweets, a kitten".

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

And my all time forever fave. When you look at just the right angle and find yourself gliding under the bridge across the water..

Photo of Monet's Bridge over the Water Lilies

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

I adore this Le Brun. That little girl is absolutely up to no good and I love her cheeky little face.

Photo of the painting Mademoiselle Brongniart by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun looking fabulous for a Wednesday

Photo of the painting Self Portrait in a Straw Hat by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

A gorgeous hour at the National Gallery with some old and new favourites

Photo of the painting 'Madame de Pompadour at her Tambour Frame' by François-Hubert Drouais

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

Mayfair is so posh that I just saw a man walking along smoking a cigar and the Pret near my hotel is hidden from view down a side street. I mean you couldn't have a Pret visible near the wine merchants to the King could you!

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 06/11/2023

London folk: any must-see exhibitions at the moment? I'm down for one night tomorrow/ Weds

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

Apparently my cat likes beetroot and coconut milk curry now. Is nothing safe from this creature? (Cat was moved immediately after photo)

My white and tortie cat, Tilly, sat on the kitchen side licking a serving spoon. Like any of that's allowed.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 28/10/2023

Oh Mark, I'm so sorry. It's the absolute worst to say goodbye but the time you have with them makes it worth the pain. She'll know how much you love her. Take care of yourself

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 26/10/2023

Mulled wine outside a busy pub to round off a lovely few days in the Lakes. Guess the pub (the maple tree is the clue)

Photo of a glass mug of mulled wine with two orange slices in. It is sitting on a round wooden pub table and blurred in the background are more pub tables and an autumnal maple tree.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 20/10/2023

Slowly, slowly I'm making my way through Les Rougon-Macquart cycle (not even attempting to do it in order). I'm forever fascinated by the scale of Zola's ambition to create a complete study of his changing world. What an immense project to even conceive of, let alone dedicate 20+ years to

Photograph of the Oxford World's Classics edition of Émile Zola's 'The Belly of Paris'. On the front cover is a painting of people and fruit and veg stalls outside Les Halles in the 1870s

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

Two years ago I started a part-time MA, while working a full-time job in HE. Today I got my mark for my dissertation and found out that I'll be graduating with a distinction 😊 Feeling just a little bit proud of myself. No-one's here so me, the cat and a bottle of wine are getting the party started

Screenshot of the cover page of my dissertation, the title of which is 'Female beneficence: elite female-led émigré relief in Great Britain during the French Revolution'

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 11/10/2023

It's always when you need to go out soon.

My white and tortie cat, Tilly, curled up in a ball on my lap. I'm wearing blue jeans and sat on my grey sofa

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 09/10/2023

Dinner with a pregnant friend has to be the best way to go out. Start eating at 6.30, order seconds because it's socially acceptable for once, finish up by 8.15 and everyone is sent on their way to buy a big bar of chocolate from sainsburys and eat it in bed.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 07/10/2023

Just watched the gorgeous ginger tom cat from over the road, who is a frequent garden visitor, run excitedly up to my cat and from about 5 metres away roll over and show his belly in complete submission. He is desperate to be friends. Tilly floofed up her tail and hissed.

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Emma Mason @emmalrmason.bsky.social · 02/10/2023

I went (with work! Not for pleasure) in 2019. Needless to say the free Conservative blue lanyard was not worn

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