New word for today: iatromathematical, which strictly speaking means 'relating to or holding a mathematical theory of medicine' - but I came across an older usage, where it means 'practising medicine in conjunction with astrology' - a serious discipline in the 17th century (and not without adherents today). As illustrated by the Zodiac Man, frequently seen in almanacs of the time, correlating different parts of the body with the star signs - important information for bloodletting or surgery...

A lovely word for a lovely thing: a volvelle is a device consisting of a set of rotatable disks attached at the centre, surrounded by other graduated circles and used to track the movements of the sun and moon, calculate tides, etc. The attached image shows a particularly beautiful example from Lambeth Palace Library, and there's a great post on their blog about conserving volvelles in 15th century almanacs: https://monumentoffame.org/

And today's new word is flong, a mould used to cast plates of type-metal - or stereotypes. In fact, I've only just discovered that the words 'stereotype' and 'cliché' were both originally printing terms for these plates. Stereotyping came into its own in the 19th century - plates could be attached to the cylinders of a rotary press, without the hazard of movable type being flung in all directions by centrifugal force, allowing for printing at unprecedented speed and volume

‘Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest’: quote from Goethe which I came across at an exhibition of work by Patricia Piccinini at #kunsthalrotterdam. Piccinini produces these incredible sculptures that, for me, explore the boundaries between ‘normal’ and what is deemed monstrous, and interrogate what we define as human. Many depict scenes which initially seem sinister, but on closer inspection are quite joyous, like this piece, ‘The Welcome Guest’

The cube houses were designed in the 1980s by Piet Blom. The idea was to create a forest of houses, with the living spaces in the ‘tree-tops’ so that you still have outside space at ground level. They look amazing! But major accessibility issues (wouldn’t fancy bringing up a toddler in one, either…)

Dream work space: writing desk in the #KijkKubus, one of Rotterdam’s cube houses

Just visited the Drole exhibition at the Horse Hospital in London’s Russell Square. Wonderfully creepy selection of clown memorabilia… #scaryclown #coulrophobia #horsehospital