Items

Title: Anatomical Woman

Title

Description

This manuscript contains 500 Greek and Roman recipes from the fourth and fifth century, both culinary and medical, reflecting the polyglot culture of the Mediterranean basin. Sometimes referred to as the oldest extant cookbook in the West, the manuscript is divided into ten books. It is likely that the Apicius began as a Greek collection, mainly written in Latin, and adapted for a Roman palate. The collection is likely compiled from many sources, as no evidence exists that Apicius (a Roman gourmet in 1st century AD), authored a book of cookery. Our manuscript was penned in several hands in a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Carolingian scripts at the monastery at Fulda (Germany) around 830 AD. It is one of two manuscripts (the other at the Vatican) presumed to have been copied from a now lost common source. The Apicius manuscript is the gem of the Academy’s Margaret Barclay Wilson Collection of cookery, acquired in 1929.

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Subjects (LC)

Cookbooks, Cooking, Latin peoples, Cooking, Mediterranean, Cooking, Roman, Early works to 1800, Manuscripts, Medicine

Title: Gessner's Owl
Description: Tucked among the magical storehouses of Diagon Alley is a shop that is always dark in order to accommodate the preferences of its nocturnal inhabitants. This is Eeylops Owl Emporium—and the setting for Harry Potter's adoption of his pet, Hedwig, who remains one of his truest companions throughout his school years. The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner depicted many owls in his volume dedicated to birds, including this handsome grey owl with his abundance of downy feathers and keenly intelligent eyes. Owls of all types appear throughout the series, retaining the cultural associations they've had for centuries of both wisdom and omens.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Aldrovandi's Basilisk
Description: All hail the king of the snakes! Basilisks—from the Greek basiliskos, for "little king," are depicted in many early modern natural histories and were said to be the kings of the serpents (Dark Arts students will recognize them for their diadem-shaped crests). J.K. Rowling preserves many details of the accounts from sixteenth- and seventeenth-century sources about this terrifying snake, including his birth from a chicken's egg hatched under a toad, and a gaze that could kill. Susceptible to wizard control by some Parselmouths, only Tom Riddle proved snake-charmer enough to ever challenge one.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Spider, Hortus Sanitatis
Description: Even arachnophobes may be well-disposed to this spider, who dates to the 1499 publication of the Hortus Sanitatis (here he appears in our 1517 edition). Spiders were often depicted in early printed books using pictographic shapes, drawing on an earlier medieval tradition. Here, our spider scrambles up a tightly circular web, his thorax evenly studded in a grid design. He may not look scary, but the accompanying text offers strong evidence that this spider might have caused worry, just as J.K. Rowling's giant spider Aragog did. The authors of this early modern tome included several botanical remedies for spider bites.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title

De symmetria partium in rectis formis humanorum

Description

Albrecht Dürer, printmaker and painter of the German Renaissance, was equally famous during his lifetime for contributions to the study of mathematics and proportion. In this text, Dürer treats the arithmetic and geometrical constructions of bodies, largely at rest. Numerous woodcuts represent bodies male and female in various sizes and ages, and register their measurements. The ideas expressed in the De symmetria and the two complimentary volumes that followed, also on human proportion, were widely influential on artists and anatomists for centuries to come. This 1532 text in Latin contains the first two books of the results of this research, first published in German in 1528 as Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion (Four Books on Human Proportion.) Dürer died shortly after receiving the first proofs of the German edition; the remaining publication details were completed by his friends. Our copy is bound in stamped pigskin, with a front panel illustrating Jacob’s ladder and a back panel depicting the baptism of Christ. The woodcut monogram Dürer developed in 1497 to protect his work from piracy is visible on the title page.

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Subjects (LC)

Anatomy, Artistic, Anthropometry, Early works to 1800, Human figure in art, Medical illustration, Medicine, Proportion (Anthropometry), Proportion (Art), Wood-engraving—16th century

Title: Plague Visitation Scene

Title: West Port murders; or, an authentic account of the atrocious murders committed by Burke and his associates, containing a full account of all the extraordinary circumstances connected with them. Also, a report of the trial of Burke and M'Dougal, with a description of the execution of Burke, his confessions, and memoirs of his accomplices, including the proceedings against Hare, &c.
Description: Disbound book. Engraved frontispiece (artist, George Andrew Lutenor; engraver, Thomas Clerk). Illustrated with engravings. Includes drawings by Walter Geikie. Has broadside titled "The West Port Murders" tipped in (14 cm.).
Collection: The Resurrectionists

Title: A laconic narrative of the life and death of James Wilson, known by the name of Daft Jamie; to which is added, a few anecdotes relative to him and his old friend Boby Awl, an idiot who strolled about Edinburgh for many years
Description: Chapbook that has been disbound and mounted in a window-pane style. Illustrated.
Collection: The Resurrectionists

Title: Valentine's Twelfth Key
Description: In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Harry learns that the alchemist Nicolas Flamel successfully created the philosopher's stone; in reality, reports of Flamel's reputation as an alchemist and immortal were greatly exaggerated. Jean-Jacques Manget's Bibliotheca Curiosa, published in 1702, compiled many alchemical texts and included Basil Valentine's The Twelve Keys. Valentine's work offered twelve plates that symbolically depicted methods to achieve the philosopher's stone. In this last operation, the final step in realizing the stone, a sun and moon illuminate a laboratory where an alchemist stands in front of a blazing furnace and tends to two roses, as a lion devours a snake.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Letter to the Lord advocate, disclosing the accomplices, secrets, and other facts relative to the late murders; with a correct account of the manner in which the anatomical schools are supplied with subjects
Description: Pamphlet, disbound and mounted.
Collection: The Resurrectionists

Title: Pomet's Unicorns
Description: If you visit Mr. Mulpepper's or Slug & Jiggers Apothecary in Diagon Alley, among the remedies available for a few scant Galleons is unicorn horn. In his comprehensive catalog of plants and animals used for medicinal purposes, the French apothecary Pierre Pomet identifies five species of unicorns, though he is quick to admit that most unicorn horns sold in shops are probably from narwhals. Narwhal or not, these horns were worn as protective amulets, used to cure fevers and rout poisons. They were also displayed as curiosities in pre-Revolution-era France.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: 33. Observations on the phrenological development of Burke, Hare, and other atrocious murderers : measurements of the heads of the most notorious thieves confined in the Edinburgh Jail and Bridewell, and of various individuals, English, Scotch, and Irish, presenting an extensive series of facts subversive of phrenology
Collection: The Resurrectionists

Title: Who's Afraid...

Title: Gessner's Unicorn
Description: The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner's 4,500-page encyclopedia of animals, the Historia Animalium, makes even the prolific Gilderoy Lockhart look like a slouch. Part fantasy, part observation, Gessner's dense and exuberant animal kingdom included creatures real and imaginary, running the gamut from sea monsters and whales to diminutive tabby cats. Of the unicorn, Gessner writes that its horn marrow, cut with a little wine, could heal a man who'd eaten a poisoned cherry, and could cure a number of ailments. All the better to keep young wizards out of the Hogwarts hospital wing.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Case History Card: Conditions Previous to Admittance

Title: 27. An account of William Burke, who was executed at Edinburgh, on Wednesday the 28th day of January, 1829, for murder : with the confession he made while under sentence of death
Description: Tract printed on laid paper. Disbound and mounted. Illustrated title page. At head of title: Cheap tracts, no. 16.
Collection: The Resurrectionists

Title: Distillation Apparatus
Description: Serviceable copper cauldrons may be found for first years at Potage's in Diagon Alley, but for more advanced potions, students can consult the pages of Philipp Ulstadt's work on distillation for an apparatus upgrade. Ulstadt, a Swiss physician and professor whose very popular Coelum Philosophorum contained concise technical instructions for the processes of distillation, illustrated his manual with hand-colored woodcuts. Among Ulstadt's recipes are many for distillates of herbs and plants with wine, directions for making aqua vitae, and recipes for potable gold. Read closely, and you may find a formula for the molten gold Felix Felicis is near...we wish you lots of Liquid Luck.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: 26. Authentic confessions of William Burk, who was executed at Edinburgh, on 28th January 1829, for murder, emited before the sheriff-substitute of Edinburgh, the Rev. Mr Reid, Catholic priest, and others, in the jail, on 3d and 22d January
Description: Disbound pamphlet. Illustrated. Portrait of William Burke appears on the title page. An illustration of Daft Jamie appears on page 7.
Collection: The Resurrectionists

$La methode curative des playes, et fractures de la teste humaine avec les pourtraits des instruments$

Title

La methode curative des playes, et fractures de la teste humaine avec les pourtraits des instruments

Description

Ambroise Paré is renowned as the father of modern surgery. In obstetrics, Paré pioneered a new way of turning an infant in the uterus. He also made significant advancements in the treatment of hernias, the fitting of artificial limbs and eyes, and devised a new instrument to reduce hemorrhage after amputation. As with much of his work, the Methode Curative was widely distributed and reached a large audience. Long considered a classic text on the treatment of head wounds, this book contains 74 woodcuts, many hand-colored and adapted from the corpus of Vesalius. The first section, devoted to the anatomy of the head, is illustrated with woodcuts. The anatomical engravings were modified from the woodcuts of Vesalius and completed by the talented Jean le Royer, King’s Printer. The second part of the book details the treatment of head wounds, skull fractures and diseases of the face. Included in this section are drawings of surgical instruments, many fashioned by Paré himself. The book contains the woodcut portrait by Jean Cousin, printed in an oval surrounded by Paré’s motto, “Labor improbus omnia vincit” (hard work conquers all). It is bound in limp vellum, with a gold-tooled vignette on the cover.

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