LEAF THROUGH; DREAM ON

Recently landed: Leaf through; dream on

Our first Rare Book Week session had to be Earth, Insect, Beast, to see, with our own eyes the National Gallery of Victoria’s earliest illuminated manuscript, The Gospel of Theophanes, a Byzantine rendition of the Four Gospels, written in Greek (ca. 1125–1150). From the figures undertaking activities appropriate for the season (December’s man sows seeds, January’s man with a hog’s head, feasts, and February’s ol’ man warms his bones by the fire) to two red-beaked birds (one of which has been painted so as to be portrayed mid head scratch, with the underdrawing revealing the foot previously positioned alongside the other) on the first page of the Canon Tables (Canon Table 1, f.3), we loved hearing such details from Petra Kayser, Bonnie Hearn, and Ruth Shervington. We loved the two lions (Canon Table 3, f. 5v) with their tails wrapped like belts about their mid section, with their tips pointed skyward like arrows.

Continuing reading on Marginalia.

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2nd of August, 2026

And on the last day of all things Rare Books, a Little forest microbat (Vespadelus vulturnus) fluttered into care. She was found still and cold, on the ground in a police car park at Docklands. As we later explored the Rare Book Fair, in the beauty of Wilson Hall, we looked for a fitting name among the many titles to borrow for her. We settled upon Mollie, after a 1904 edition of Mollie’s Bunyip with bats on the cover. Mollie’s Bunyip features verses by Annie Rattray Rentoul, and illustrations by her younger sister Ida Sherbourne Rentoul, later Outhwaite, and is known as Ida’s first illustrated book.