i am utterly enamoured of folia magazine, although i have no italian and have to use my musty latin and mustier french as comparative vocabulary aids and crib together the general sense of each post. this is a great sorrow to me, which even google translate does not entirely assuage. what i can see, though, is that it is a glorious online magazine (probably there is a lavish print version?) which publishes a beautifully photographed and satisfyingly high-res detail from a medieval/renaissance illuminated manuscript every day. i commend it highly to friends (or even enemies) of the transparent hummingbird.**

**although i have to confess that just now what i’m busily looking at are the details from the historia plantarum (they’re in the “advice from the middle ages” series). i’m busy looking at them to see if there are any warnings about basil, for ask the past has just been explaining how to defend yourself from basil.*** ***(they should make brain scorpions a monster on doctor who)