his-dark-materials

Smoo Cave, northwest Scotland, from a new series of work ‘The Edges of the Isles’, January 2018.

Monday 3 June 2019

I love this corner of the library. Perfect silence, perfect temperature, perfect view.

A 17th-century Safavid brass Mecca Centred World Map, Persia,

The circular brass base plate with centrally-pivoted rotating brass diametrical rule fixed with removable pin, a glazed circular recess for compass to lower part, the base plate finely engraved and chased with an elliptical grid overlaid with inscriptions in thuluth naming the geographical locations on the grid, vertical and horizontal axis denoting longitude and latitude,.

The elliptical grid surrounded by four cartouches filled with fine inscriptions in thuluth on stippled grounds with scrolling tendrils, the border with a series of further inscription-filled cartouches denoting the bearings, applied hinged sundial to upper edge, hinged latitude arc to left hand side, two applied splayed brass feet to upper side of reverse

22.5 cm. diam.; the box 25.5 cm. diam.

If you happen to be passing by Oriel College in Oxford, you might give a thought to the poet Hartley Coleridge, who was once a fellow of Oriel. Long before C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien invented fantasy lands, Coleridge came up with an elaborate alternative world of his own ✨✍🏻. His quirks and drinking bouts were too much for the Oriel authorities, however, and he was exiled from his Oxford refuge.