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This item was severely damaged in the fire in The Mackintosh Building at The Glasgow School of Art on 15th June 2018. Some fragments have been salvaged. The bell survives as it was not in the building at the time of the fire.

The symbols which form the Glasgow coat of arms all refer to miracles performed by St. Mungo, the patron saint of the city who is normally represented with these emblems on the coat of arms. They first appeared on the seals of bishops of Glasgow, the fish on the seal of William Wishart in 1270, the bird on the seal of Robert Wishart in 1271. They were used together for the first time on the seal of the Chapter of Glasgow in 1488. The salmon with the ring in its mouth refers to the story of the local Queen who gave her ring to a knight she was in love with, the jealous King stole the ring from the knight while he was asleep and then demanded it back from the Queen, having thrown it into the Clyde. In desperation she prayed to St. Mungo who told his followers to cast their fishing nets in the river and bring him the first fish that they caught, a salmon with the Queen's ring in its mouth. The tree represents the green hazel twig which Mungo restored to life after his companions had killed it. The bell represents the service bell used in Mungo's church and still in Glasgow until c1700. Mackintosh's tree is highly abstract in its Art Nouveau 'whiplash' spirals untypical of his work. The bird is a modern replacement of the stolen original.

This sketchbook consists of 81 pages of sketches made by Charles Rennie Mackintosh during his trip to Italy in 1891 funded by his Greek Thomson travelling scholarship prize money. The subjects he sketched are mainly architectural, with the one he felt to be most impressive being labelled 'A Caution'. Each sketch is labelled with the name of the city or town in which it was sketched. In 1890 Mackintosh won the Alexander 'Greek' Thomson Travelling Scholarship with a design for a public hall, which enabled him to take an extensive tour abroad from February to July 1891. He left Glasgow for London on 21 March 1891, sailing from Tilbury on the Thames on 27 March and arriving in Naples on 5 April. He then visited Palermo in Sicily, Rome, Orvieto, Siena, Florence, Pisa, Pistoia, Bologna, Ravenna, Ferrara, Venice, Padua, and Vicenza, arriving in Verona on 10 June 1891. The Sketchbook contains drawings from the later part of Mackintosh's tour, from 10th June, with sketches, mostly of architectural and sculptural details, beginning with Verona. It covers Verona (11-14 June); Mantua (14 June); Cremona (14-15 June); Brescia (16 June); Bergamo (17 June); Lecco (18 June); Cadenabbia and Lake Como (19-25 June); Como (26-27 June); Milan (28 June-6 July); Pavia (7 July-?); Certosa di Pavia (probably several days around 12 July); Paris and Chateau d'Ecouen (late July?); Antwerp (late July? - briefly visited on his return journey). It also contains several pages of designs for the Glasgow Art Club (1892-3) and the Glasgow Herald Building (1893-5). The drawings themselves are almost all pencil sketches, some of which are now quite faint.

A 3/32 inch:1 foot (3:384) scale coloured balsa wood model made by students of the Manchester University School of Architecture (under the auspices of Professor Thomas Howarth?). This item is damaged and is awaiting conservation.