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dkgullo.bsky.social
Director of the Malta Study Center at HMML. International specialist in the digital preservation of cultural heritage in endangered archives, libraries, and museums. Finds cool, forgotten stuff and makes it accessible to everyone.
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A nice example of illluminated silk to show the lineage of a young noble seeking admission into the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. The records will be digitized as part of the Malta Study Center's digitization project at the State Archives of Florence. #Archives #Italy #EarlyModern #SkyHistorians

submitted 1 hour ago • 0 comments

Art in the archives, here looking at the sketches for the eventual murals at the Casa Buonarroti. As Director of the Malta Study Center, I began digitizing the complete Buonarroti archives in October 2024. #Italy #Art #Archives #Florence

submitted 17 hours ago • 0 comments

The rule of law and port neutrality to foster trade and create wealth. Here an 18th-century document attesting to the negotiations between King Philip V of Spain and Fra Pedro Dávila y Guzmán, ambassador of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem to Spain, to foster trade and grow commerce. #tariffs

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

This lovely little drawing in the Archivum de Piro was created as part of a legal case for wrongful seizure to illustrate the position of the navy of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and their auxiliaries when capturing a ship in the Levant. #Art #Archives #MaritimeHistory #Mediterrranean #Malta

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

In 2015, I was made project director for vHMML.org, which is HMML’s online portal for the study of manuscript cultures. This award winning platform’s foundation was built on a grant from IMLS. No IMLS no vHMML . www.npr.org/2025/03/31/n...

submitted 7 days ago • 0 comments

A charter from the the Monastery of San Giovannino dei Cavalieri in the State Archives of Florence that provides an example of sewing two large parchments together and including drawings and other pen decoration apparatus to match the parchments if separated. #MedievalSky #Archives #SkyHistorians

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

In interesting photograph from a microfilm from the Registers of the Roman Inquisition at Trinity College Dublin, showing how evidence in the trial was bound in the archival volume as part of the trial proceedings. #EarlyModern #Libraries #SkyHistorians

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Another beefy volume from the The National Archives of Malta, where we are currently digitizing the Consolato del Mare fonds as part of our Malta Maritime History project, which began in 2018. #Malta #Archives #MaritimeHistory #EarlyModern #SkyHistorians

submitted 22 days ago • 0 comments

As part of the digitalization project that I am leading at the Monastery of Saint Peter in Mdina,Malta, we will be digitizing the important collection of archival records related to the beatification of Maria Adeodata Pisani. The procedure was opened in 1898 and confirmed in 2001.

submitted 28 days ago • 0 comments

Excited to see my new article, “Dispersed Archives, Authority Control and the Land Surveys of the Order of St John of Jerusalem," published by Routledge. Congrats to my editors Drs. Valeria Vanesio, Valentina Burgassi, and George Alexander Said-Zammit. www.routledge.com/p/book/97810... #Archives

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

Composite representation of properties that were part of the Commenda di San Eufrosino alla Volpaja drawn in 1800. The commenda belonged to the Priory of Pisa. Digitization completed a part of the Malta Study Center's Langue of Italy project at the Archivio di Stato di Firenze. #Archives #Italy

submitted 31 days ago • 0 comments

I absolutely love finding these illustrations of landholdings in the archives. The amount of detail put into the artistic representation of the land always impresses me. From the Malta Study Center’s project in Florence. #Archives #Italy #EarlyModern #SkyHistorians

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

Partial drawing "Charity" attributed to Andrea del Sarto. Possibly a study for "Charity" at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1957.14.5). Part of the digitization project of the Malta Study Center with Cláudia Garradas at the Cathedral Musem in Malta. #Art #EarlyModern #Renaissance

submitted 34 days ago • 0 comments

An early history of the foundation of Benedictine women’s monastic communities in Malta. It’s a rare early history of religious orders on the island. Part of our digitization project at the St.Peter's Monastery, Mdina. #Malta #Archives #EarlyModern #SkyHistorians

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

An important new acquisition to my collection. I need to take it to MACC in the Minneapolis Institute of art for some conservation. Rare c. 1780-1790 portrait, miniature of a young member of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem on the eve of the Revolution. #France #Portraits #18thcentury

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

Diagram on how to prepare a family tree for a proof of nobility for admission into the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. Such diagrams were provided to commanders to properly prepare the documents. Archivio di Stato di Firenze. ASFI 00609 006. #Archives #Italy #EarlyModern #SkyHistorians

submitted 38 days ago • 0 comments

How I envy the sleeping pups here introducing the Soliloquium of Bonaventure in Jena, Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Jena, Ms. Bos. o. 14, fol. 159r. @carinr.bsky.social #Cataloging #Manuscripts #Medieval #SkyHistorians

submitted 39 days ago • 1 comment

When it comes to these thin account books, sometimes one requires more than one set of hands to keep these unruly pages in place. We use these little "robots" to help keep things where they are supposed to be. #DigitalPreservation #Archives #Florence #Italy #EarlyModern

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Another one of Count Saverio Marchese's drawings cataloged over the last two months. Here the count is copying the engraving "Robe à la Turque" by Nicolas Dupin originally designed by Pierre Thomas Le Clerc in "Gallerie des modes et des costumes français (1780)." #Costumes #EarlyModern #Fashion

submitted 41 days ago • 0 comments

Extremely happy to have added the first 29 volumes of Series 2, Libri conciliorum of the Archives of the Order of Malta to HMML Reading Room yesterday. Since 2022 my project has digitized over 500 volumes at the National Library of Malta. #EarlyModern #Skyhistorians #Archives #Libraries

submitted 42 days ago • 0 comments

I think the photographer pretty much summed it up correctly. It's remarkable the damage caused by iron gall ink. Trinity College Dublin Roman Inquisition records.

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

A very rare ex libris of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana found in the Museum of the Order of St. John (K3/17). The Bibliotheca Lindesiana was created by Alexander Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford, in the 19th century; one of the great private libraries in England until its collection was sold in 1901.

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments

Another beefy big boy volume of archival records from the women's Benedictine Monastery of Saint Peter in Mdina, Malta. I started the digitization of the archive last fall, and already 100 volumes have been photographed. #Malta #Archives #Skyhistorians #WomensHistory #Benedictines

submitted 55 days ago • 0 comments

The receipts from the Priory of Pisa in the State Archives of Florence offer glimpses into the daily life of early modern Italy, such as Fra Angelo d'Elci's payment to Filippo Casini for French lessons given to Marquesa Francesca Barbò on 31 August 1772 in Florence. #EarlyModern #Italy #Archives

submitted 55 days ago • 0 comments

One will need to zoom in, but it’s a fairly remarkable 17th-century political map of Italy done as a genealogical tree found in the Casa Buonarroti. #Italy #Archives #EarlyModern

submitted 57 days ago • 0 comments

What a random find yesterday. Designed for a certain Count Maurizio in Vienna. How it ended up in the Archives of the Priory of Pisa is a conundrum. Love the audacity within the genre. #c18th #Architecture #Pink #EarlyModern #Italy

submitted 58 days ago • 0 comments

Increasingly governments abandon their responsibility to preserve historic collections, forcing institutions like the State Archives in Florence to do crowd funding to raise money to preserve historical records. See the QR code for donating. The crisis is everywhere.

submitted 59 days ago • 0 comments

Today I found a fragment on the study of fortifications at the State Archives of Florence. The fragment begins with exercises on geometry, then a partial text that looks like it was prepared for teaching or a short treatise for those new to military engineering. #Archives #EarlyModern #Italy

submitted 59 days ago • 0 comments

I've cataloged the drawings of Count Saverio Marchese over the last two months. This eccentric character delighted in making drawings after engravings of costumes and birds, such as the "Demoiselle vetù d'une Robe a l'Anglaise". #Art #Drawings #18thcentury #Malta #France

submitted 61 days ago • 4 comments

The Museum of the Order of Saint John in London will be having a public event to promote the launch of Dr. Marcus Bull's new history of the Great Siege of Malta of 1565. Wish I could be there! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/talk-and-b...

submitted 61 days ago • 0 comments

What appears to be one volume, actually contains nine separate smaller volumes with proofs of nobility of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. The Malta Study Center’s digitization project at the State Archives of Florence. #Archives #Italy #Florence

submitted 62 days ago • 0 comments

Opening up a “volume” at the State Archives of Florence is like opening up one of those Russian dolls that just keep turning into smaller folders. #Archives #Earlymodern #Italy #DigitalPreservation

submitted 62 days ago • 0 comments

Paper covered wax seal of Grand Master Alof di Wignacourt, note the text Registrata in Cancellaria by the Vice-Chancellor Fra Emmanuel Kebedius, registering the document in the official records of the Order’s chancery.

submitted 63 days ago • 0 comments

Another day, another set of documents to organize, clean, and foliate prior to digitization. A collection of 17th-century receipts from the Priory of Pisa at the State Archives of Florence. #Archives #Italy

submitted 63 days ago • 0 comments

I started a significant project in Florence last October, and now it’s being fully realized.

submitted 64 days ago • 0 comments

Remnants of the Commandery of Santo Sepolcro in Florence on the far side of the Ponte Vecchio. One can see the arms of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and a modern cross of the Order identifying the place. Originally a Templar commandery it was given to the Hospitallers in 1313.

submitted 65 days ago • 0 comments

I am always amazed when I discover remarkably well-preserved seals while preparing volumes for digitization like this example for Grand Master Jean de Valette dated 1568 at the State Archives of Florence. #Italy #Archives #Earlymodern #Florence

submitted 66 days ago • 1 comment

Hard day’s work cleaning and preparing metadata for the digitization of the records of the Priory of Pisa at the State Archives in Florence. Always shocked at the amount of sand and ink residue a volume can produce. #Archives #Italy #Florence

submitted 66 days ago • 0 comments