Snails jousting knights are a recurring element-you could even say a meme-in manuscript illumination. “These marginalia served as warnings to the young queen: remain faithful,” said Gallant. This book of hours features marginalia with sexual innuendo-seemingly scandalous considering the book’s devotion to the Virgin Mary. How creatively constrained were the artists? What is the relationship between the marginalia and the text? According to Gallant, in some cases the relationship is clear and the marginalia serve “to impart a lesson that perhaps is not explicitly rendered in the text.” Gallant pointed to the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux (on view at the Cloisters). The images that Weird Medieval Guys share bring up hotly debated scholarly questions. You almost don’t need to have the context in order to map some emotion or get something out of it.” Paul Getty Museum, echoed this: “The images are simultaneously strange and unfamiliar and also deeply resonant because of their visual appeal. Larisa Grollemond, assistant curator of the Manuscripts Department at the J. She attributes the popularity of these accounts to the fact that the Middle Ages is “distant enough to feel weird, enigmatic, and yet we find some of our own behavior and impulses” reflected in its art. “Medieval art can feel so distant, unapproachable, stuffy-the more we can break those barriers down the better,” said Denva Gallant, 2022–23 Rome Prize winner and an art-history professor at the University of Delaware who specializes in medieval art. Weird Medieval Guys and similar accounts (such as and on Instagram) have attracted the notice of scholars, too, who welcome the attention to their discipline. Bibliothèques d’Amiens Métropole, France, ms 108 fol. It didn’t take long for the account to blow up. She spent a year sourcing images and poring over digitized manuscripts before posting the first tweet. She told us that her experience working as an intern digitizing historical photos in the archives of an American institution led her to appreciate the importance of uploading collections online to increase access. Who is behind Weird Medieval Guys? The American Academy in Rome respects the creator’s desire to stay anonymous, but we can reveal she is a twenty-two-year-old Scottish woman who launched the account “purely for the sake of sharing with the world.” Born and raised on the internet (as all of Gen Z is), she has a passion for art history. They suit today’s intensely visual form of expression. With their frequent depictions of animals doing amusing activities, medieval images seem to anticipate internet culture. The images are also conscientiously cited with links to the source material: the British Library, the Albertina in Vienna, the Morgan Library and Museum, and others. The humor of the account is that of the internet: it is niche, visual, a little self-indulgent. 12th century” to “ a boar wearing pants, france, 14th century.” Examples range from “ extremely rotund hedgehog, italy, 14th century” to “ crazy frog, france, 13th century” to “ cat churning butter, germany, ca. The account has brought centuries-old images, mostly from the marginalia of illuminated manuscripts, into the feeds of millions. The account, called Weird Medieval Guys, has over five hundred thousand followers, having more than quadrupled in growth in mere months. One viral Twitter account is spreading joy through the unlikely source of European medieval art. Despite this, the library still insists that readers agree to them.With apocalyptic news updates and eerily personalized ads, social media platforms have lost the charm they once held-but perhaps not completely. Thus, the historic rules of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, forbidding readers bring fire into the library "or kindle therein any fire or flame", seem somewhat antiquated. These are relatively safe spaces for our books, being dry, clean and, increasingly, smoke free. In addition, the usual habitat of the modern book is in libraries, book shops, and prescribed areas within our living spaces (on book shelves, or on the bedside table). Students are forbidden to annotate library books with pen or highlighter (though they often do anyway, to the disgruntlement of the next lender). Book burning stirs up powerful feelings as it is perceived as an affront to the cultural knowledge that books contain. In contrast, intentional book disfigurement is frowned upon. They are battered around in the bottom of bags as the owner seeks snatches of time to read them on the bus, for instance. Much of the harm done to books is the collateral damage of everyday life. Though many of us have been guilty of neglecting books – leaving them open spine down, accidentally ripping them, or dropping them in the bath – we tend to treat them with a degree of reverence.
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