Items

Title: Lykosthenes' Phoenix with Flames
Description: One of the earliest descriptions of the mythical phoenix dates to Herodotus, who described a bird with red-and-gold plumage that appears in Heliopolis once every 500 years. This woodcut is from the Alsatian chronicler of curiosities and humanist Konrad Lykosthenes. Worried this distressed rara avis will go the way of kindling? Not a chance! Not only is the Order rooting for him, but, as Dumbledore's patronus, we're pretty sure he's on the rise, especially on Burning Day.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Lykosthenes' Salamander
Description: Konrad Lykosthenes tells us in 1557 that the salamander has a highly toxic venom, so strong it would taint all of the fruit on a tree it climbed. He also connects the animal with fire, arguing that the salamander can put out flames with its touch. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, salamanders are born from flames; Fred and George also feed one fireworks as a prank, and it releases tangerine stars (not inappropriate given the stellar designs on this fellow's back). Don't let the twins give you any ideas or that'll be ten points from Gryffindor.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Mandrake Pair
Description: Hands on your ears! This winsome mandrake pair can be found in the fifteenth-century Hortus Sanitatis (in Latin, “garden of health”). Study up on this German text's directions for removing these screaming plants from the ground (pro tip: get your dog to help), and you'll be sure to win high marks from Herbology Professor Pomona Sprout. The bifurcations in the plants roots, resembling human bodies, have been associated with magical ritual since classical times.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Manget's Alchemists
Description: This plate comes from an alchemical text called the Mutus Liber, or silent book, which was included in Jean-Jacques Manget's compilation, the 1702 Bibliotheca Curiosa (First-years, it's a far cry from the shrieking book in the school library's restricted section.) The image illustrates a sequence of laboratory operations to transmute baser metals into gold. Alchemical texts from the early eighteenth century and onward often show women working alongside men. The last panel of the image shows the alchemists shushing the reader, but they leave us with powerful wizarding wisdom: "Pray, read, read, read, reread, work and discover."
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Nash's Wolfsbane
Description: John Nash's intoxicating woodcuts have a distinctly modern feel, with leaves and blossoms fashioned in a bold contrast of dark and light. Nash classifies his plants as "deadly" (nightshade), "dangerous" (foxglove, thorn apple), and "suspect" (pasque flower, Bear's foot), though The Times Literary Supplement's 1928 review argues that these groupings are somewhat arbitrary. Wolfsbane (also known as Monk's Hood) is the most poisonous plant of the buttercup family. J.K. Rowling tells us that the plant could suppress violent impulses in werewolves if taken by the gobletful before a full moon.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Nicolas Flamel's Hieroglyphicks
Description: Never trust a Chocolate Frog card: Nicolas Flamel, magician, is introduced via that medium to Harry and Ron on their inaugural ride to Hogwarts. Despite the interference of a less than helpful librarian—Madame Pince, for shame!-- Harry unearths Flamel's backstory as the maker of the philosopher's stone and beneficiary of the elixir of life, a mixture that keeps him 690 years young. The historical Nicolas Flamel had a similarly outsized reputation. The scribe and manuscript-seller married a wealthy widow and owned many properties, but probably never wrote alchemical texts, such as the one attributed to him on hieroglyphics.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Paré's Mermen
Description: Early modern naturalists frequently relied on seafarers' tales of ocean voyages to augment their knowledge of sea life. The French surgeon Ambroise Paré's work included the figures of the monkfish and the bishop fish, which, apart from their fin-like arms and abundance of scales, resembled human clergyman. High-Inquisitor Dolores Umbridge might have referred to the mer-people and centaurs in Paré's book as "half-breeds"— creatures that were isolated, because of their hybrid forms, from the wizarding community.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Pomet's Bezoar with Goat
Description: The French druggist Pierre Pomet devotes a section of his comprehensive history of drugs to bezoars, explaining that the stones appear in the stomachs of cows, apes, and goats. Pomet's goat leaps over a bezoar, sliced open like a geode to reveal its efficacious core. Pomet argues that this bezoar, produced in the belly of a high-leaping wild goat common in the East Indies, would promote sweat and drive away malignant humors. We'd wager Monsieur Pomet, apothecary to Louis XIV, could give even Snape a run for his wand in a battle of the Potion-Masters.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Pomet's Stag
Description: Expecto Patronum! The French apothecary Pierre Pomet writes that the very bones of deer could "revive the Spirits expel Melancholy, and help the Palpitation of the Heart." All three Potters—Harry, father James, and mother Lily have the fleet-footed deer patronus in common (James is also a stag, while Lily is a doe). No wonder the appearance of Harry's agile animal spirit and guardian steadied him during his face-offs with the most evil wizard of all time.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

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: Schott's Centaur
Description: Gaspar Schott's grimacing centaur looks like he may topple over from the weight of the world on his shoulders...or is that the weight of the heavens? When the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest are first introduced in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, they seem too consumed with star-gazing to worry much about the big school on the hill. That changes when the centaur Firenze is coaxed to teach Divination. Schott, a German Jesuit (Athanasius Kircher was Dumbledore to his Harry) published his Physica curiosa (1662), an astonishing compilation of stories and illustrations about strange births and fantastic creatures.
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: Two Dragons from Ambroise Paré
Description: Anatomist, surgeon, and inventor Ambroise Paré's collected works, first published in 1575, offer illustrations of many medical anomalies along with strange and exotic creatures. Among them, Paré singles out dragons, placing all bets on these fierce, fantastical creatures in theoretical battles with elephants and birds of prey. Paré writes, "Pliny saith, that there are Dragons found in Aethiopia of ten Cubits long, but that in India there are Dragons of an hundred foot long, that fly so high, that they fetch Birds, and take their prey even from the midst of the clouds." With such a range of species, we're happy Hagrid's egg hatched the Norwegian Ridgeback Norbert, who, despite some destructive tendencies, was a pretty swell guy.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

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: Woodville's Dittany
Description: In the eighteenth century, dittany gained notice in Europe for its efficacy in treating worms and infections. A tincture of dittany cut with wine was also used to treat epilepsy. William Woodville reports in his three-volume Medical Botany that the plant could often be seen adorning the borders of flower gardens, emitting a strong bituminous odor. Wizards, follow your nose: as term begins, and you make your way to platform 9-and-3/4, you'll do well to nab this odiferous plant from Woodville's former garden, located in King's Cross just yards away from the Hogwarts Express.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: della Porta's Natural Magic
Description: Possible History of Magic exam question: what happened when Giambattista della Porta, the author of this 1558 book on natural magic, was called a "Neapolitan sorcerer" by the French witch hunter Jean Bodin? Della Porta's book explained that some women accused of witchcraft may have used herbal lotions that contained hallucinogenic properties, prompting them to imagine they could fly. With a little luck, Flourish and Botts Bookseller may have a copy; you'll also find creative applications for mandrake and other medicinal plants in these pages.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

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