iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

If there's anything more exciting than seeing a book you work on in an exhibition, it's surely being invited to talk about it. Very excited for this event next month! 📷 Lancelot Browne's annotated copy of Avicenna in Arabic at the @rcpmuseum.bsky.social exhibition, 'A body of knowledge'.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Here’s @drallotment.bsky.social & @mattsymonds.bsky.social talking about EBDO, @fredschurink.bsky.social talking about CEBEME, and @annalujz.bsky.social who has been instrumental to both projects, on our final DH panel. Very excited to play with both data sets over the coming weeks! #BuiltWithBooks

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Here is Ted Simonds from @lampallib.bsky.social talking about Sion College Library’s donors. His research is piecing together stories of people & books, both on & off the pages of the Book of Benefactors, and emphasised (for me!) how much bookish networks overlapped in the period. #BuiltWithBooks

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Here is Joe Nankivell from @tcdlibrary.bsky.social talking about his very exciting project to digitally reconstruct the library of François Fagel. I think everyone in the audience left eager to play with his website, & wondering whether they could make their own digital bookshelves… #BuiltWithBooks

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Here is @biblioraphic.bsky.social talking about evidence of how the Cotton Library was bound (red, green, blue, black, ancient and archival bindings!). There are Cotton MSS in my own research, so I’m very excited to learn more from Raphaëlle/ask her millions of questions #BuiltWithBooks

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Here is @ellenwerner.bsky.social giving a fantastic paper about two Manchester apothecaries whose reading she is tracing through their books at @chethamslibrary.bsky.social. I obviously love early modern books and reading, but as a northerner myself, I find Ellen’s research particularly satisfying!

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

I had put *far* too much time into designing the programmes and conference bookmarks (zero regrets). As we prepared for people to arrive on day one we were tracking the printing order via FedEx. Cannot describe the relief and excitement I felt opening this box during the first panel… #BuiltWithBooks

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

And day 2 of #BuiltWithBooks was also a joy (so much so that I’ve spent most of today recovering from the excitement!). Thank you to all our speakers and attendees for making it a huge success - cake and merch for the win, but nothing beats a room full of interesting, generous book historians.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Such a fantastic first day at our @livesandletters.bsky.social Built with Books symposium. Heading home to finish my paper (😅) full of ideas and excited for day two. #BuiltWithBooks #EarlyModern #BookHistory

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

📣 Exciting Bedwell news 📣 I’m thrilled to have assisted with a new exhibition at Bruce Castle Museum, ‘Getting the Measure of William Bedwell: Maths, Measurement and the Arabic World’. Top tip: pair your visit with a walk around the corner to see his church for full WB/early modern Tottenham vibes.

Signage at the exhibition, hung on a light green wall. The title 'Getting the Measure of William Bedwell' is in the foreground.

A close up picture of the contents of a display case: an early modern document, churchwardens accounts, with signatures at the bottom. A label next to the manuscript enlarges part of the text, which is William Bedwell's signature

Me looking happy by one of the signs. I'm wearing a white vest top and black trousers.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

Can anyone with much better Arabic palaeography skills than me transcribe this? It is the end of a note written by a Moroccan in a European album amicorum. I’m trying to work out if the name we have for the person who wrote it comes from the inscription itself or another source, but struggling…

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

My conference tattoo may be fading, but the research, conversations and unadulterated geekery of FEATHERS’ Scribes and Inky Fingerprints will be with me for quite some time. If you weren’t here I’m afraid you really did miss out…

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

If someone would like to pay me to move to Leiden that would be delightful, thank you

A view down a cobbled street in Leiden. Wisteria grows up the doorway of a building on the right, opposite an old fashioned black street light

A view down the middle of another cobbled street with buildings either side and a glorious blue sky. The Dutch flag is flying from a doorway.

The sun reflects on the canal, which is dappled with lily pads.

A poem in Arabic and English (‘Loss’ by Adonis) is painted on the side of a building. Underneath a line reads ‘to commemorate 400 years of Arabic studies in Leiden’

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

You know you’ve found your people when a stranger pulls a rare book out of their bag to compare with your homemade tote because both title pages feature the same printer’s device #RenSA25

A tote bag featuring the title page of ‘The Arabian Trudgman’ is next to an original copy of ‘The Historie of Guicciardin’ open at its title page. Both feature the printer’s device of Richard Field.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Home after a truly fantastic #RenSA25. Loved sharing my own work (once the paper was finished 😅), saw so much stimulating research and discussion, and loved Boston. But the company of amazing ECR pals is what really made it a really special trip. Fugit hora when you’re having fun ❤️

Two laptops are open next to each other on the plane, PowerPoint presentations are being edited on both

My laptop on a desk in Boston Public Library’s large main reading room. There is an ornate curved ceiling and green lamps on the tables. Other people work in the background. My PowerPoint presentation is being edited.

In the foreground is my left hand holding a delicious cannoli. Blurred in the background are my excellent pals, sat on a bench, tucking into their own sweet treats.

A close up shot of an early modern grave stone in a Boston cemetery. Above a skull is an hour glass, with ‘fugit hora’ written around.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Happy World Book Day from my current favourite, a manuscript Qur’an acquired in Surat, in the hefty English binding of Sir Simonds d’Ewes (1602-1650)

A chunky brown leather book with two metal clasps is pictured on a green desk. The cover is embossed with a gold armorial crest featuring a wolf’s head above a shield.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

So pleased I finally made it to the fantastic Endless Stories exhibition at Cambridge UL today. Slightly off topic but - aside from a couple of Bedwell MSS - this doodle study of a cat was a real highlight…

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Today I put a bird feeder *with camera* in our garden and I think it might be the best money I’ve ever spent. I’ve christened it ‘Peck a Manger’ and I apologise in advance if you don’t like birds because this will now be 90% of my social media content… 🐦‍⬛

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 25/11/2024

My absolute favourite thing in the V&A. Close second is the façade of Paul Pindar’s house, built in 1600 and demolished in the 1890s

An ornately carved two-storey façade of a seventeenth-century house. It is windowless and made of dark brown wood. It towers above the viewer, and the glass ceiling of the V&A is seen above it.

The same façade seen in situ in a nineteenth century photograph, before the building was demolished. It is a three storey building, with building adjoined on either side. Signs on its highest points read ‘Paul Pindar’ and ‘wine & spirit’.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Ah well here’s a fun one I found recently - it’s from Bedwell’s library, now in the British Library’s Harley collection. He’s added his name - ويليم بادول - to the (Armenian?) waste parchment flyleaves of the Arabic MS, and also adds a date - 1595. Love stumbling across Bedwell in the reading room!

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

I think it’s time to introduce Bluesky to my favourite #EarlyModern person, William Bedwell. If you wanted to learn Arabic in England 400 years ago you would head to his vicarage in Tottenham. It was demolished in the 1800s but you can still see where it stood today, near White Hart Lane Station 🔎

A 19th century photograph shows the old vicarage in Tottenham. It has big bay windows on the left hand side and is covered in ivy. In front of it are trees and a small garden, and another, later building is to its right at ninety degrees.

The same site today, seen from a different angle - the view is from the elevated platform at white heart lane station. The old vicarage is gone (a tree stands in its place, and the railway line runs directly alongside it). The later building still stands, and faces the camera in this shot.

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Katie is well but longs for summer, and now wants to know why she has never tried Papaya (thanks for that Rascal…). She doubts it is as good as banana though, which has definitely been her favourite this year 🍌

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Excited to see so many early modernists joining from the old place, hoorah! If you don’t know me from there I’m Sam, PhDing at UCL where I’m looking at English encounters with the Arabic language pre-1635. When not thinking about marginalia and manuscripts I’m generally waiting on my parrot, Katie.

A green parrot with yellow patches on her head and cheek sits on my hand while I try to work at my laptop

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 13/08/2024

Feeling joyfully smug about my latest Vinted bargain #BookHistory

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 29/11/2023

Thanks so much to everyone who came to our UCL PREM work-in-progress seminar last night to hear Elena Truan share her fascinating research. Our next event will be on 12/12 and details will be posted here soon www.ucl.ac.uk/early-modern... All #earlymodern and medievalists welcome!

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Sam Brown @samuscript.bsky.social · 21/09/2023

I love Duke Humfrey’s but there is something particularly magical about Chetham’s (and not just because of its connection to John Dee…)

Inside Chetham’s library in Manchester, UK. Dark wooden book cases are filled with old volumes. The building’s medieval roof rises above them.

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