Old wineskins. New wines. Old scripts, new words. May 2021 bring new parchment, new ink, new rubrics, new initials, and everything else a scribe needs to start anew – or move on to the next chapter. Although sometimes the old is better than the new, and going back feels like moving forward. 20-21 holds upContinue reading “Happy New Year”
Author Archives: cristian
Start counting back
In a few hours, many of us will be counting backwards to welcome the new year. The New Year Countdown. They may cancel the fireworks but not the countdown. 2020 has been the year of counting. Counting Covid infections, casualties, the public debt, the cost to national economies. Let us count our blessings instead. AndContinue reading “Start counting back”
Medieval inc.
The Middle Ages were full of bodies and heads. Bodies politic, corporations, incorporations, heads of ecclesiastical institutions, secular and regular bodies. The metaphor of the body was key to understanding everyone’s place in society, and the societies’ place in the universe. The medieval world was breathing through the bodies of countless societies and organisations. MostContinue reading “Medieval inc.”
Endangered letters
Imagine what it must have been like to own one of the largest libraries in the West at a time when books were rarer and thinner than the air on mount Everest; and to do it in the knowledge that you are safeguarding one of humanity’s most valuable capital: knowledge and culture, truth and beauty.Continue reading “Endangered letters”
Ancient street food
The Internet is buzzing with news about the discovery of a thermopolion in the ruins of Pompeii. The media are rushing to bridge the gap between the Roman street food culture and our own. ‘What did the Romans ever do for us? They gave us street food’, I’ve seen it printed half a dozen timesContinue reading “Ancient street food”
Screwtape in lockdown
A new letter has surfaced from the boiling depths of Sheol. Screwtape’s muddled signature has been found on the dismal document. We’re publishing it here for the first time. My dear Wormwood, It’s been a while since my last letter to you, and I fear you may be thinking I’ve forgotten about you, our missionContinue reading “Screwtape in lockdown”
In defence of misspelling
Although writing was invented over 5,000 years ago, orthographical standards and the strict rules governing how words are written are quite a recent development. Ancient scribes didn’t much care about spelling. The manuscript cultures of the past were rather liberal about the way words ought to be written. Many words in ancient Greek and Latin,Continue reading “In defence of misspelling”
From Anaximander to Alexa
Hey, Alexa, what’s the origin of scientific thinking? In the 6th century BC, Miletus may have been a small Greek city on the Ionian coast, but some people there were thinking big ideas. Thales has widely been regarded as the father of philosophy, even though most of us today remember him for his theorem. MoreContinue reading “From Anaximander to Alexa”
Architecture and networks
Each age has its own cognitive and epistemological models. The ways people remember, think and think about thinking. The myth of progress has it that societies improve over time, but in cultural terms models merely succeed each other. Ages of faith led to ages of reason (grossissimo modo) because the ways of establishing and assessingContinue reading “Architecture and networks”
Swimming mainstream
Some technologies and products take longer than others to become culturally mainstream. The printed book was adopted extremely quickly by European litterati because it made sense and it was extremely useful. Some scribes tried to defend the manuscript book against the new technology, but everyone eventually understood that print would benefit all in the end.Continue reading “Swimming mainstream”
