Amor Anchorae

Well, I'm certainly not the only one who loves a good anchor device. Here's the most recent -- and one of the most intriguing -- finds from the Iowa Special Collections Library:



The Catalogue of (Dis)Honor

[Ed. note: This is the second guest post by Rachel Stevenson, my intrepid undergraduate researcher, who has been spending the summer as an ICRU Fellow surveying the STC collection here at Iowa. A few weeks ago Rachel found a page in a book that the ESTC describes as "mutilated" -- but, as you'll see, it's anything but: it is actually a page with a remarkably precise piece cut out of it. Finding out exactly why and how this piece was cut out -- and, more importantly, what it means -- took longer than you might think, with several surprising turns. It's a great example of the contextual work it takes to explain a seemingly simple, yet puzzling, artifact. It's also a timely reminder that, alas, national politics have always been intextricably intertwined with sexual intrigue.]


In my six months of research looking through the University of Iowa’s books between 1540 and 1640, I have seen pages in various stages of disrepair and damage. I have seen greasy fingerprints, tears repaired with sewing, and copies that look like they were thrown in a mud puddle, stomped on and then stored in a damp basement (and some of them actually were stored in a damp basement!).  But I had not come across a page like this.