December 2025 (2) A monk hurries towards his monastery with a woman/nun concealed in the sheaf of straw he carries — another enduring Protestant satirical anti-monastic motif which seems to appear first in late 16C alba amicorum, before being picked up by the early 17C print-books [here the…

I have embarked on this blog in order to advertise the astonishing wealth of imagery painted (for the most part) in the Early Modern alba amicorum or Stammbucher [‘friendship books’] of (mainly) ‘German’ students, compiled between c.1560 and c.1700. This iconographic wealth is all but unknown to British…