Friday, February 14, 2025

A florentine diary from 1450 to 1516 By Luca Landucci

About 

This is what it sounds like a diary written in late 15th to the early 16th century written by a regular citizen. Landucci was an apothecary in Florence. This isn't a day to day account and was clearly collected at a later point there are notes that reference details that wouldn't be known until later. 

My impression was that he was middle to upper middle class. Its a bit hard to tell since there isn't that much personal. For example there are no notes about his children being born though some of them are mentioned later but not until they are adults. Most of the notes are news the fluctuation price of grain or goods, the politics of the city, or other countries. Crimes that happened and wars between various Italian countries and with France. Along with several plots involving the Medicis.

Also way more people getting hanged from windows. Like this seems to be something that happened at least every few years. 

My thoughts

How this has been preserved is interesting when so many other books has been lost to time.  I can see this being very useful for historians. Not so much for mentioning events. But about taxes and the price of various food stuffs. The reason the events might be less useful is how little information there is about anything that happened. The book is quite short considering how much time it covers. Some years are described in as little as half a page though some some others have 30 pages. There are so many times when I wanted more information about things mentioned. A revolt against the Medicis but Landucci says that he doesn't know why. I might have to find some history book about the renaissance Italy and read that.

Landucci was a contemporary of Machiavelli and I read this looking for any mentioned of him. Alas there were none but there was plenty about the Borgias. Interesting he expressed no opinion about the pope having children. even though he had much opinions about other sins committed by the people he talked about. 

He was very religious and quite naive in a way that I found tiring. Of course the French aren't going to conquer Pisa for you there is no benefit for them to do so. Then the 11 January 1495 he writes about a preacher who refutes accusations against himself, claiming letters showing his support for the Medici was a forgery. Landucci ends this with saying he has always stood by the community's unity. Has he because this is the same person that has categorically forbidden women from being present at his sermons.

All in all it is an interesting read if you are interested in history but don't necessarily need a narrative.

If you have read it what did you think? Leave a comment. If you haven't read it you can check it out here:

Amazon

Bokus

Adlibris

Friday, February 7, 2025

Improving a cat bed

My cat Tösen likes to sleep in her carrier and with winter here I moved it next to the radiator to keep her warm. This, however, also moves it into my eye-line form the couch and since it's quite ugly I decided to make a cover for it. 

I spent quite a long time looking up if there were any thing I could buy and use but nothing quite had the measurements I needed so DIY it is. I considered quite a few materials and methods but in the end I decided to make the base out of cardboard- Mostly because I had some left over from when I bought a bookshelf and it's easier than some of the other ideas I had. Also if it doesn't work then at least I haven't spent too much money for it.

My idea was to cover three sides of the carrier, leaving the front open and covering the long-, short- and a bit of the next long side. Measuring it I then added a bit just in case and because i plan to fold it and that will loose me a bit of length. All in all this comes to 100 cm long and 40 cm high. Luckily one of the pieces I had were large enough. So measuring carefully I drew it out on the cardboard then cut it out. This is a horrible material to cut. It's hard and folds and doesn't want to be cut neatly. Using an x-acto knife I could do parts but it can only really cut through one or two of the layers. 

A thing about cardboard is that it folds easily (too easily) but only in one direction, so to make it not do that except where I want it to I took more pieces and glued them on crosswise. Leaving gaps for where I wan't to fold it. I then used some books to weigh down the edges while the whole thing dries and I had a lunch break. 


Now comes the difficult part deciding on what I want it too look like. Painting it blue would be the easiest way. I have some paint left over and it would match other things in the room. Maybe too much, there is a lot of things in that general blue shade and I hesitate to add more. Another problem is the edges, which despite my best attempt are still a bit ragged. They would need to be covered with paper first and if I'm doing that I might as well do it properly and cover it with fabric. 

For now I'm doing a little test. I covered the longest side with a pillowcase. This lets me see how I like it and lets me easily try a few different colors. 




I tried black (slightly faded), pale blue and red these colors mostly because these are pillow cases I'm willing to sacrifice for this. 

Clearly black looks the best. But questions remain. Do I care to make the inside nice, I feel like I should but I don't want to. Do I want just black or should I add a pattern. Do I want decorative corners. Do I leave it just black clothe. I like the thought of using leather or metal to decorate and reinforce the corners. Luckily on the way back from the library I walked past a thrift store and found a large piece of faux leather. I plan to use it for the corners, the question is will the black leather look good with the black/dark gray fabric.

I decided that it will and so I'm going to try dark fabric and black edges. So I seam-ripped the pillow case and draped it over the cardboard, securing it with binder clips. I leaved it there for a few weeks making sure I actually like it. In the mean time I turned to other projects and to making a paper model of the edges.  

Once I decided this is something I can live with long time I used a staple gun to attach it. I laid the fabric out on the floor and laid the cardboard on top. Folding the edges over and pulling it tight as I went along. The staples aren't the most solid, if I try I can pull them out with out to much trouble. But hopefully it's enough since they wont take any pressure. For the corners, I cut them out using the templates then glued them on folding them over the corners. I then securing them with clips while it dries. 

Now for the big question will I bother to do the inside properly. Unfortunately I will have to. As you can see in the pictures the back part of the inside will be visible. I realized while testing that the fabric wasn't quite wide enough so despite most of the inside being hidden a sliver of cardboard would be visible. I just know it'll annoy me if I leave it like this. So I measured the visible cardboard on the inside and cut out a piece of the pleather that matched plus some extra for over lap and glued it on. I did this in sections letting the glue dry under weights before doing the next part. I also made sure the sides were held at the angle I wanted them to be later so the pleather helps reaffirm the 90 degree corners. 

Results

And this is how it ended up. It looks good so long as one doesn't look to closely at the inside, where some of the staples are visible. I did realize that I made the back part just a little bit to short so the short side gets pushed out of the right angle I wanted it to be. I could have added a centimeter to every side. but it works. Though some of the carrier is still there it's just mostly covered. 
This picture is a lie though. I had also moved a cat tower to stand by the radiator and Tösen immediately abandoned her carrier for the tower. I then moved the carrier into the bedroom where my other cat Mischka decided it was his so at least it's being used. But it's kind of hidden behind a shelf so its not really visible. Does this kind of make the whole thing unnecessary. Yes but that's life.  

A florentine diary from 1450 to 1516 By Luca Landucci

About  This is what it sounds like a diary written in late 15th to the early 16th century written by a regular citizen. Landucci was an apot...