Friday, 13 May 2016

Hedgehog or Porcupine?

The library staff were quite taken with the creature on this title page, thinking it was a hedgehog, only to find that apparently it is a porcupine.

This is the emblem of the Fabretti family, whose motto, "philois charisasthai echthron amynasthai", means roughly be nice to your friends, guard yourself against your enemies!


 

Title page of Inscriptionvm antiquarvm quae in aedibvs paternis asservantvr explicatio et additamentvm (1699), by Raffaele Fabretti.

http://catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/record=b2505430~S7

http://opac.braidense.it/bid/SBLE001336

UPDATE:
Thank you to our Twitter friends for the mediaeval hedgehog facts!




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