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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

In 1684, mayor of Amsterdam Nicolas Witsen was gifted a Chinese atlas (Guangyu Tu 廣輿圖, 1555) by Jesuit missionary Philippe Couplet. This atlas is now held at @huisvanhetboek.bsky.social, where I had to pleasure to show it to the visitors of its Vriendendag last Saturday!

Handwritten text in a seventeenth-century hand on white paper, which translates to 'The Jesuit priest Philippe Couplet returned from China to report to the Holy See about Christianity in China. He has lived there for 24 years, and Father Philippe Couplet showed me this atlas of China. At the same time, he showed me a small book with maps from which Martini had drawn his atlas and on which Martini himself had made notes. Father Philippe Couplet further said that the atlas was reprinted after the maps that had existed three hundred years ago. Martini translated the Chinese narrative in that small atlas into Latin word by word and was compiled into his new atlas of China. However, Father Philippe Couplet told me, the atlas (referring to the larger one) given to you is perfect and more refined. Nicolas Witsen, 1684'.

Woodblock printing of a Chinese map with Chinese text on the left

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Nothing ever really changes: on the left a woodcut for January in an almanac for the year 1693 - on the right the same image found in the 'Enkhuizer' almanac of 2026

Image in black-and-white of a man with a crown holding a star standing in front of mother with two children in a door post

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

Clara, is that you? In Buffon, 'Histoire Naturelle', t.6 (Paris 1756)

Engraving of a black-and-white rabbit, with a cabbage in the foreground and other farm-like paraphernalia. In the background wash is hanging

Zoom-in of the background where you see a vague image of a rhinoceros

Black-and-white engraving of a rhinoceros

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

‘Et sic in infinitum’, Robert Fludd in ‘Utriusque Cosmi’ (1617) on back-to-back staff-meetings in the last days before the December break #bookhistory

Image of a black square engraved on slightly yellowing paper

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Can anyone tell me what this visualization means? "Message to the bookbinder. The plates must be placed in the work next to the pages as indicated below, and in such a way that they can be unfolded entirely to the right-hand side" #bookhistory

White page, black type: message to the bookbinder.

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Oproep tot voordrachten voor de Menno Hertzbergerprijs 2026 voor boekwetenschappelijk onderzoek over de Lage Landen in brede zin (ook voor prentkunst en cartografie!) Nomineer een collega of jezelf voor de Prijs voor het Beste Boek of voor de Aanmoedigingsprijs. 1/8 #boekgeschiedenis #boekwetenschap

Zwart-witfoto van Menno Hertzberger, een oudere man met wit haar, gekleed in een colbert en donkere stropdas. Hij zit aan een bureau vol papieren en boeken, met achter hem boekenkasten gevuld met oude banden.

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Call for nominations for the Menno Hertzberger Prize 2026 in Book Studies of the Low Countries broadly considered (also looking at you specialists of print or cartography). Please nominate a colleague (or yourself!) either for Best Book or for the Encouragement Prize 1/8 #bookhistory #bookstudies

Black and white image of older man (Menno Hertzberger) with white hair wearing a sports jacket and black tie, at a desk filled with papers and books in front of book cases filled with old books.

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Lovely view of the facade of the new University Library of the @uvahumanities.bsky.social, very fitting background when teaching our MA course 'The World in Books' #bookhistory @boekwetenschapuva.bsky.social

Image of facade full of text, with a view of the street it is on

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 30/08/2025

Quite a drastic - and creepy - measure to take when a friendship has run its course. From the album amicorum of Joannes Hackaert (must have been a nice guy) [Rijksmuseum Amsterdam]

Portrait of a man in eighteenth century dress with a blue coat and a red waistcoat with a face that is erased

Portrait of a man man in a black coat and red waistcoat who’s face is erased

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Practise makes perfect! 18th-century artist manual with colour swatches [Rijksmuseum Amsterdam]

Page with colour swatches in pink, blue and green

On the right hand side colour swatches on the right side written text

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

The Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse soon to be lost to the sands of time near Løkken, Denmark #cantwaitfordune3 #sandblasted

Photograph of dunes with a lighthouse in the far background. The sand is yellow and the sky is grey

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Not a combination you would expect, but the Museum of the Historty of Printing and Canning in Stavanger, Norway is fantastic! #bookhistory #Iddis #doeswhatitsaysonthetin

Led light sardines in yellow and pink on the left, books and a small cupboard in the back

Sign: printing history to the left, canning history to the right

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Just realised that the 'Formosan hoax' of George Psalmanazar (a French impostor who, in the early 1700s, claimed that he was a native of Formosa (now Taiwan), even publishing a detailed but entirely fabricated account of its language, customs, and culture, was printed by Dan Brown... #bookhistory

Black and white title page of Description of Formosa

Impressum in black and white, stating 'London: printed for Dan Brown'

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 20/07/2025

I was recently gifted this; I have a vague idea what it is, but perhaps someone can tell me a bit more about it? #bookhistory

Piece of paper with text ink black in and a seal stamped on the left side

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Masterful use of typography to demonstrate to children how to write well | Guillaume LePescheur, 'Het fondament van wel spellen ende lesen' (1626) #bookhistory

Black and white image of a hand holding a feather with above it examples how to write individual letters

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

From now on I'll only respond to Dr. DJIKISTRA

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Fellow (book)historians, a question! I am working on a late 17th century French manuscript, but it seems to have a plate edge surrounding the image. How would that work? All 200+ images seem to have one? #bookhistory

white page with image of a green plant with written description in red and black below

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

Lovely, this 17th century author calling his new publication 'dit Papiere Kint' ('this Paper child') #bookhistory

Page of 17th century book with ornamental initial

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

CfP! Vakgroep @boekwetenschapuva.bsky.social van de @uvahumanities.bsky.social, Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte van de @uantwerpen.be en Onderzoeksgroep Nederlandse Literatuur van de KULeuven organiseren op 24 oktober het negende Boekhistorisch Forum! Meld je aan voor 15 juni #bookhistory

Call for paper Boekhistorisch Forum 2025

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Can someone with access to SOLO help me out? A digital copy of this book should be available but I can't access it :-( #bookhistory solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44...

Message stating that I don't have access

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

How many letters may be composed and distributed in an hour? The Royal Society doing book historical research before it was cool (kidding, book history has always been cool) [Philosophical Transactions, vol. XV 1686] #bookhistory

Printed page with black letters on white paper describing various experiments; What proportion of each sort of Letters are in the English, Latin, and French Tongues, &c, Forasmuch as well Printers letters are of the same height, quaere the weight of an Alphabet of the several usual sizes, Quaere how many of each sort of Letters will stand in ten inches square, Quare how many letters may be composed and distributed in an hour?

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

Printed ephemera in paint: Still Life with Walnuts in a Wanli Bowl, a Pipe, and a Tobacco Wrapper by Hubert van Ravesteyn (1670) The wrapper’s image of a Black man holding a pipe recalls the imagery of hundreds of tobacco papers that have survived from the 17th and 18th centuries [MFABoston)

Dark painting of a porcelain bowl filled with walnuts in the middle, stoneware jug, a tall glass, a long-stemmed pipe, and a tobacco wrapper.

Cut-out of the paper tobacco wrapper, showing a Black man smoking a long-stemmed pipe and the text 'orien Tael / vergini Taback / tot Dordrecht by marschael / A 1670'

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 15/03/2025

This is a message I can get behind!

Firehydrant with a sticker on it that says: 'Read Motherfucking Books! All Damn Day'

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Great early example of an optical illusion which apparently is called 'the Thatcher effect', found in an early 18th-century coloured German 'Totentanz' held at the University of Amsterdam #bookhistory #DanceMacabre #MementoMori

Coloured copper engraving of a face of a man with a brown beard and a black cap

Same face but now upside down, showing that it is also a skeletal face

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Helped asked! I'm looking for coloured copies of John Jonston's 'Historiae naturalis', esp. the volume on 'quadrupetibus' (1650) Please let me know if you or your library has a copy 📚 #bookhistory #libraries

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Call for Papers Yearbook for Dutch Book History 33 (2026) We publish Open Access articles in Dutch and English on all aspects of the book history of the Low Countries. For the 33rd edition, we particularly welcome contributions within the theme of "Sustainability and reuse". (1/3)

Stacks of books with a recycle image in the middle

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

A 17th Century MS on elephants in Batavia: One of these elephants was called Japon. He often walked through the streets of Batavia past the houses, begging for alms. Usually, someone would give him some fruit or something else to eat (1/2)

Copper engraving of a camel, deer and elephant. Hand-coloured

Black and white etching of various animals, with an elephant, hippo and rino in the middle

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Season's greetings from this little guy on a 16th century binding of Johannes Trithemius' 'Polygraphie et universelle escriture cabalistique' (ParisPour Jaques Kerver, 1561) in the collection of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica

Parchment binding with engraved geometrical figures and a smiling angel-like face

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

It's the outside that counts: Early modern parchment binding made from a sea-map, UvA Allard Pierson VII-12-F-4(8)

Old handwritten map on a parchment binding

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

De MA Boekwetenschap van de @uvahumanities.bsky.social heeft een eigen uitgeverij, volledig in beheer van de studenten! @uitgeverijarmorica.bsky.social Recent verscheen 'Onder druk wordt alles chaos', en 'Lezen achter de tralies' van Paula Drewes over de wereld van de gevangenisbibliotheek.

Groene boekomslag met lichgroene en roze letters 'Pauls Drewes. Lezen achter de tralies. De gevangenisbibliotheek en haar functies'.

Beige boekomslag met zwart ornament over de linkerkant.

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Impressive collection of books for sale from the library of George Kelly ‘Lately a State-Prisoner in the Tower, Which he desires might be Sold to discharge some Debts he Contracted before he made his Escape’ #booksky #bookhistory

Auction catalogue, black ink on white paper

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Book of Hours printed on parchment (Paris 1502) [University of Amsterdam O 69-90]

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Boekwetenschap in het weekend! Kom aanstaande zaterdag 23 november naar een kunstschouw over de Blaeu atlas van het KOG in het Rijksmuseum - kog.nu/agenda/2024/...

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

It's the perfect weather to bring out your book-shaped earthenware hot water bottles again! The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge #bookhistory

Two blue and white earthenware handwarmers in the shape of a book

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Women and the booktrade. Elisabeth van Biesen de Haes is found in this impressum under her own name as 'Printer [drukster] of the noble court of Guelders' #bookhistory

Impressum in early modern print in black ink on white paper

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 12/11/2024

Do you know how many books you could buy with that kind of money?!?

A glass bottle with a white label saying ‘bibliothèque’

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

Just to show how reading aloud was very much part of the early modern engagement with print 'allen den geenen/ die deesen sullen sien of hooren leesen' [all those who will see or hear this read]. This was a very common way to present such information in the public sphere #bookhistory #skyhistorians

Early modern notice in both roman and gothic typeface with a large ornament at the top and a large woodcut initial

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 10/11/2024

Fitting initial on the funeral notice of Elisabeth van Heyningen, printed in Batavia (1704) #bookhistory #skyhistorians

Printed funeral notice in black and white

Ornamented initial of a W with a skeleton

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 06/07/2024

Late to the rented cottage as we had tho make a detour to see this 4000 year old yew tree in Llangernyw, Wales. Totally worth it!

Massive green yew tree on green lawn with gravestones in front

Inside of same massive yew tree with grave stones

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

Happy 400th Anniversary of the publication of the First Folio for those who celebrate

Title page of Shakespeares First Folio with a portrait of the author

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 02/11/2023

One of the questions of the BA course 'From Pen to Print' exam was "how do you spell the title of the book that has been called the most beautiful ever printed (Manutius, Venice 1499)", and over 75% of them got it right. I would call that a succes!

Woodcut of a man being chased by a dragon, running into a portal.

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 10/10/2023

Op vrijdag 27 oktober organiseren de KULeuven, UvA en de UAntwerpen de 7e editie van het Boekhistorisch Forum in Amsterdam, met lezingen van een fantastische groep boekhistorici. Schrijft u allen in! @liekevdeinsen.bsky.social @uvahumanities.bsky.social

Programma van het Boekhistorisch Forum 2023

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 06/10/2023

Fancy a game of chess? Hand-painted chessboard found on wooden boards of bookbinding, collection UvA

Wooden board, part of premodern bookbinding

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Trude Dijkstra @trude-dijkstra.bsky.social · 03/10/2023

Handwritten poem in a printed book from c. 1497, explaining how this poem may be handwritten, the rest of the book was made by machine: "I. Jon manus has finscit calamo preperante figuras Fevrea sed totu[et] machina cussit opus" UvA UB OTM: Inc. 7

Image of a handwritten (probably 15th century) poem

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