#puttiofscience
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rhiggitt.bsky.social
The boys are, of course, #puttiofscience and, gloriously, one of the drawings produced by the drawing putto is another #puttoofscience in a chariot being pulled by a butterfly! (I'm sure you know this @dominikhhh.bsky.social!) #histSTM
The drawing boy automata. The torso of a man holding a drawing (larger scale) pointing to a putto in a chariot drawn by a butterfly.
September 8, 2026 at 6:45 PM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
Can someone please write that #PuttiOfScience book, already? We do need it!
celinecamps.bsky.social Celine Camps @celinecamps.bsky.social · Apr 2
Related: if anyone has knowledge of/literature recommendations on the use of putti (faces) on #EarlyModern scientific instruments (esp. on earliest use), I'd be very grateful for suggestions or getting in touch! (perhaps
@rhiggitt.bsky.social & @dominikhhh.bsky.social?) #HistSTM #ArtHistory 🗃️ 🏛️
April 2, 2026 at 7:26 PM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
Look, @rhiggitt.bsky.social , what I found: #PuttiOfPorts ! Can't believe they exist and literally round the corner from my apartment. Aren't they just fab! 😍
#PuttiOfScience
4 putti on a sandstone relief. Two operating a crane, Tow are in a boat, one is rowing another is drawing something. A relief at the Katharinenhof in Hamburg. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharinenhof_(Hamburg) CC BY-SA 3.0 Uwe Barghaan
January 31, 2026 at 3:41 PM
rhiggitt.bsky.social
Splendid #puttiofscience at work
chrislintott.bsky.social Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · Oct 29
And the great map of the Moon itself, split into two on 335 and 336 digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/42bf...
October 29, 2025 at 4:16 PM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
Not quite one of the #PuttiOfScience but certainly one of the many #PuttiOfLabour

Ping @rhiggitt.bsky.social
dbellingradt.bsky.social Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · Jan 16
*humming in 1534*

… I like big books an´ I can not lie.
You otha brothas can´t deny.

#bookhistory
Detail of the the hand-colored title page of "Biblia, das ist, die gantze Heilige Schrifft Deudsch. Mart. Luth. Wittemberg. Begnadet mit Kürfurstlicher zu Sachsen freiheit." from 1534 showing a small angel carrying a big as big as the angel. Source: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:32-1-10036633619
October 29, 2025 at 7:16 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
visited different library, found different cherubs!!
#puttiofscience
Closeup of copperplate engraving of three putti looking with great interest at a skull and a flensed arm woodblock ornament of two putti doing something probably unwholesome with a flask Full view of the copperplate title page of William Cowper’s 1698 Anatomy, with all sorts of allegorical shit I do not quite understand happening
September 18, 2025 at 10:14 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
the second two volumes of the set!
#puttiofscience
ok this one isn’t quite doing science but he’s carving the title onto a big stone block and looking at a caterpillar Volume three title page Closeup of the cherubs, examining a basket full of bugs of various sorts, plus a lobster
August 13, 2025 at 9:39 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
found this at the perfect time, since I’m working through the rare stacks for some catalog maintenance
#puttiofscience
Copperplate title page of Gottlieb Wilhelm’s 1796 Unterhaltungen aus der Naturgeschichte with some cherubs doing entomology Closeup on the cherubs, one of whom is holding a collector’s net and looking over the shoulder of the second, who is illustrating a plate full of beetles. I think he might actually be engraving a copper printing plate but am less certain of that
August 13, 2025 at 7:56 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
more #puttiofscience, or at least of architecture and gardening, courtesy of the Hortus Eystettensis:
happy lil cherub holding a compass and surrounded by architectural tools probably Cherub with a garland of plants and fruit The full dedicatory page to the bishop whose garden this work catalogs. It’s a very fancy copperplate engraving with the two putti on either side at the top of his portrait
August 11, 2025 at 1:28 AM
rhiggitt.bsky.social
New members of the #PuttiOfScience Appreciation Society may enjoy my 2020 Instagram Advent Calendar. Christmas Day was Newton themed: www.instagram.com/p/CJLOoklpoU... (I think you can scroll back from there to see more)
Screenshot showing thumbnail images from Instagram, all details from images containing #puttiofscience
August 10, 2025 at 7:20 AM
jeybecques.bsky.social
I think I need to start a new thread to collect botanical #puttiofscience. #pottani?
#cherubsofscience
Title page of Clarici’s 1726 “Istoria e coltura delle piante,” printed in black and red, with a decorative plate of two cherubs Closeup on the cherubs, one of whom is holding flowers and pushing a watering can with his foot and the other of whom is pruning a citrus tree in a very fancy urn
August 9, 2025 at 3:49 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
However, the world must also be warned of their crimes: beware the murder cherubs of Vesalius
#puttiofscience
#cherubsofscience
detail of a historiated initial from Vesalius’ Fabrica, with a deeply sinister cherub holding a straight razor and lounging in the corner
August 9, 2025 at 1:33 PM
jeybecques.bsky.social
The world must know of this!
#puttiofscience
#cherubsofscience
three putti and a grown up angel encircling a portrait of Linnaeus, with rays of light emanating from behind him, from Thornton’s Temple of Flora
August 9, 2025 at 1:12 PM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
That’s a very good not least because of the variety of wings - both bird & insect. #enthist meets #PuttiOfScience 😆
Thank you. You’re in!
August 9, 2025 at 8:42 AM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
Join the International #PuttiOfScience Appreciation Society (IPOSAS) now! Membership applications may be sent to @rhiggitt.bsky.social & me and need to include your favourite #PuttiOfScience image.
August 9, 2025 at 7:58 AM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
We really need to start the #PuttiOfScience Appreciation Society. 😆
August 9, 2025 at 6:54 AM
alecmackinnon.bsky.social
and here we see how important #puttiofscience were for computational labour before we had lots of graduate students
dbellingradt.bsky.social Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · Nov 6
Nothing to see here. Except a group of busy baby angels doing #astronomy, and discussing and calculating the solar eclipse of May 1706 as a part of an eighteenth-century impression of our solar and planetary system printed in #Nuremberg, hidden in an atlas about Africa with a very uninviting cover.🗃️
Detail of an eighteenth-century impression of our solar and planetary system in print titled "System Solare et Planetarium" published by Homann, Nürnberg (this print is hidden in an atlas on Africa. UB Erlangen (H61/2 GGR.C 33), showing a few babies/angels doing astronomy. Detail of the mentioned eighteenth-century impression of our solar and planetary system in print titled "System Solare et Planetarium" published by Homann, Nürnberg showing the solar eclipse of 1706. An eighteenth-century impression of our solar and planetary system in print titled "System Solare et Planetarium" published by Homann, Nürnberg. This print is hidden in an atlas on Africa. UB Erlangen (H61/2 GGR.C 33) The old cover of an atlas on Africa from the UB Erlangen (H61/2 GGR.C 33).
August 7, 2025 at 8:14 PM
alecmackinnon.bsky.social
this evening's discovery: that #puttiofscience are a thing, e.g. here: wellcomecollection.org/stories/putt...
August 7, 2025 at 8:12 PM
rhiggitt.bsky.social
#puttiofscience *and* #cherubsofscience
book-historia.bsky.social BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · Aug 7
I forgot to post this horrid little cherub when I first took a picture of it, so here he is to darken your feed
An unbelievably grumpy-looking cherub measuring a polygon with a compass, flanked by two other regular looking cherubs
August 7, 2025 at 7:01 PM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
Almost #PuttiOfScience but most certainly #PuttiOf(K)Ink 😆
dbellingradt.bsky.social Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · Feb 3
Inky #censorship - or accidental inky drops to cover both the nipples and the pubic region of a #putto?

And was it done by a contemporary owner or reader (in 1740 Germany) - or by some 20th century American librarian at Yale Law Library?

This #earlymodern printer's device has it all. #bookhistory
A printer's device from 1740 Germany (from Johann Philipp Krieger, a Gießen-based printer). You see two putti, one putto has his nipples covered with ink, and his pubic area also covered with ink. Above the device is the library stamp "Yale Law Library". Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/yalelawlibrary/50658504491/in/album-72157715339319198
February 3, 2025 at 5:34 PM
rhiggitt.bsky.social
So many, many times I have passed the gates of George Heriot's School without stopping to look at it (as opposed to the amazing main building and views of Edinburgh Castle). I only saw today the #puttiofindustry there (variant on #puttiofscience)
View of the entrance archway (19thc) with turrets etc. The sunlit main building can be glimpsed through the arch. Detail cropped from the previous photo, showing a stone carving of putti welding a hammer over an anvil. Below are two winged cherubs, monogram and decorative stonework
January 16, 2025 at 10:55 AM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Did someone say #PuttiOfScience?

lindahall.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/de...

(Title page of André Tacquet's Opera mathematicum, 1669)

#histSTM #sciart #SillyPutti
September 20, 2024 at 4:11 PM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
Congratulations!
Hurray for the publication & for #PuttiOfScience of course. 👏🏻
September 20, 2024 at 6:26 AM
rhiggitt.bsky.social
And look! I got some #puttiofscience onto the front cover! Busy surveying the sites and sights of early modern London
September 19, 2024 at 11:20 AM
dominikhhh.bsky.social
Hygge #PuttiOfScience , @rhiggitt.bsky.social ? Frolicking instead of sciencing! Shocking! 😂
liamsims.bsky.social Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · May 29
Frolicking among the fungi. A glorious scene from the title page of Johan Theodor Holmskjold’s book on Danish fungi (Copenhagen, 1790). The motto nestled among the mushrooms - ‘nec fungi me indigni’ - means ‘fungi do not displease me’. Cambridge UL S370.a.79.2.
May 29, 2024 at 4:29 PM