This is absolutely inspiring and makes me thankful that I have a tremendous husband who sends me links of weight and consequence (versus the lightweight stuff that amuses me such as fez-o-rama...etc.). The British Library sets the bar high with their new online gallery, "Turning the Pages: leaf through our great books and magnify the details". The Library mounts their special books from the Lindesfarne Gospels, to Leonardo's notebooks, to the Sforza Hours and the First Atlas of Europe that you can literally turn the pages, magnify details, read the copy and do everything except sneeze on the original. They show the original binding and end papers, annotations, drawings. Jane Austen's History of England has these wonderful naive portraits drawn by Austen--an inspiration and insight to see her visual skills in addition to those literary.

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It is a wonderful resource with a magnifying glass to see up close how images were handled, to note the palettes etc. I am hardly breathing with excitement.

This is your little afterdinner mint from all of us at The Rongovian Academy of Fine Arts.

Doesn't get much better than this.

image from the Lindesfarne Gospels