I. A few postcards from my recent trip to Geneva with the A.I.B.
— H.B. de Saussure, Cyanomètre, ca. 1788. Bibliothèque de Genève.
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A glimpse of the Villa Diodati, on the other side of the fence from the Parc Byron, Cologny (Geneva in the distance).
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Gérard de Nerval. Autograph manuscript poem, [Fantaisie], after 1842. The last quatrain. [Private collection.]
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The approach to the Château d’Oron.
Some of the library shelves at the Château d’Oron : a large room filled with late eighteenth-century popular literature and other books, all in impeccable original condition.
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The original book-fool.
Von buechern hab ich grossen hort
Verstand doch drynn gar wenig wort
— Sebastian Brant. Das Narrenschiff. Basel, 1494. Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire, Fribourg.
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Glimpses from the exhibition, Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse. Enquête su un roman-monde, curated by François Rosset [at the Fondation Jan Michalski, Montricher, through mid-February, 2027].
— Jan Potocki. Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse. St. Petersburg, 1805. One of three surviving copies of the first printing (the first decameron of the book).
— Jan Potocki. Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse. Manuscript page (from the version of 1810).
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H.B. de Saussure, Voyages, dans les, Alpes, 1779. Plate VIII, the view from the summit of the glacier. [Private collection.]
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Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire, Lausanne. [The library of the twenty-first century, still under construction.]
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Inscribed
— Ernst Jünger. Auf den Marmorklippen. Inscribed to Martin Bodmer, 25 September 1939. Fondation Martin Bodmer. [Snapshot under minimal light.]
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precocious children
La Musicienne, Musée d’art et d’histoire, Neuchâtel. One of three surviving programmable automata constructed by Pierre Jaquet-Droz and his son between 1768 and 1774. These were exhibited at the Spanish court and elsewhere in Europe as sales tools for the firm’s watches and clocks. The museum curator who maintains and operates stands behind l’Écrivain (the writer). The uncanny valley starts here.
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One the great delights of the trip was to see the original autograph manuscripts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Reveries du promeneur solitaire in the Rosseau archives at the Bibliothèque de Neuchâtel, together with some of his autograph notes written on playing cards. Not one of my pictures, however, is in proper focus. Alas.
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II. The earlier part of my vacation was spent in an undisclosed location, writing, and walking.
the view from the desk
the view from one morning’s walk.
My nearest neighbors were a family of grey foxes : a vixen and at least four kits, and sometimes the dog-fox, too (I could never get everyone into a single frame).
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