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Milda Kvizikevičiūtė

@mildakviz.bsky.social

Early modern travel historian researching rare books. Digital Humanities enthusiast. Basically, if it’s old, bound, and mysterious, I’m probably digging into it.

118 Posts216 Follower150 Folgt
Milda Kvizikevičiūtė@mildakviz.bsky.social · 3mo ago

“End of the Lutheran chronicle. This book is not worth reading. The quarrels of the vile Luther — suspicious of heresy.” This inscription in a copy of Marcin Bielski’s “Kronika tho iest historya swiata“ (Cracow,1564) absolutely made my day. Early modern readers: never shy with opinions!

Close-up of an early modern printed chronicle page in Polish, with Gothic type and a decorative woodcut ornament at the bottom. In the lower margin, a handwritten reader’s note comments on the book, calling it a “Lutheran chronicle” and “not worth reading.”
Milda Kvizikevičiūtė@mildakviz.bsky.social · 4mo ago

A book that survived fire – by losing its first page. The Brest Bible (1563) is one of the most remarkable witnesses of the Reformation in Lithuania. Printed in Brest (Brasta), it was the first full Bible translation in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania into a vernacular language – Polish.🧵

An open early printed book with visibly damaged and uneven pages. The text is printed in black ink in a historic serif typeface, with decorative initials. Several leaves are torn, misaligned, or loosely inserted, and handwritten notes appear in the margins. The binding is broken, with pages separating from the spine, revealing the book’s worn interior structure.A heavily worn 16th-century book with a damaged brown leather binding. The cover is partially detached, exposing wooden boards and sewing structure along the spine. The edges of the pages are uneven and warped, suggesting long-term use and age. The overall condition shows significant deterioration, with torn leather, loose threads, and visible structural fragility.
Milda Kvizikevičiūtė@mildakviz.bsky.social · 6mo ago

On 7 May 1697, fire destroyed most of Stockholm’s Tre Kronor Palace. The blaze spread fast through wooden interiors and copper roofing. Evacuation followed; servants tried to save royal possessions. That is how Bleau’s atlas and a drinking glass survived the fire!

Stack of large early modern atlas volumes used as a display plinth, with a small historic drinking glass placed on top. Behind them, a wall-mounted engraving depicts the 1697 fire at Stockholm’s Tre Kronor Palace, showing flames, fleeing figures, and collapsing buildings. The scene is set against rough stone walls in a museum exhibition space.
Milda Kvizikevičiūtė@mildakviz.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Arbor Consanguinitatis (Tree of Consanguinity) from a 1509 edition of the Sexti libri materia, printed in Paris. Clerics used these complex "trees" to map out prohibited degrees of relationship. If your family branches crossed here, a marriage was legally considered incestuous.

A black-and-white early modern woodcut printed on paper, depicting a stylised tree filled with circular labels. At the top, a crowned male figure holds branching vines; below, circles name family relations in Latin (father, mother, siblings, cousins), each marked with red Roman numerals indicating degrees. A central human figure stands mid-tree. At the bottom, a banner reads “Haec est arbor consanguinitatis” (“This is the tree of consanguinity”). The image was used in canon law to calculate degrees of kinship for marriage.
Milda Kvizikevičiūtė@mildakviz.bsky.social · 9mo ago

A masterpiece of early natural history 🦋✨ Scilla’s 1715 butterfly manuscript, Italy’s first Lepidoptera collection, pairs meticulous watercolours with 211 specimens preserved between mica “windows” — centuries before modern plastics. Kept at Biblioteca Casanatense,

Milda Kvizikevičiūtė@mildakviz.bsky.social · 9mo ago

This fencing manual - written between 1482–1487 and dedicated to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro - once sat in the Ducal Library of Urbino. Influenced by Fiore dei Liberi, cited in the ducal index, lost after Cesare Borgia’s 1502 conquest, resurfaced centuries later at the National Central Library of Rome

An open 15th-century manuscript displayed on a wooden table. The right-hand page features a full-length illustration of a stylized male figure holding a long sword, decorated with bright colors and symbolic motifs: a green dragon head near the hilt, gold circles at the knees, and a horned or fleur-de-lis–shaped crest on the helmet. Surrounding the figure is dense handwritten Latin text in brown ink. The left-hand page contains neatly written text with rubricated initials and marginal notes. The pages show signs of age and wear.