Items

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Leo, Astronomicae Veteres
Description: Master printer and innovator Aldus Manutius produced some of the finest early books printed in Venice. His extraordinary collection, the Scriptores Astronomici Veteres, included four astronomical texts that date from the Hellenistic period through imperial Rome. This star-studded Leo is one of many constellations illustrating the Greek poet Aratus's Phaenomena, one of the few illustrated works produced by the Aldine Press (they're modeled on earlier woodcuts produced by another Venetian printer, Erhard Ratdolt for his star atlas in 1482). Leo has special resonance for Hogwarts students as the sign of both Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling herself: both were born on July 31, and the lion is the regal animal behind Harry's house. Hail, Gryffindor!
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Kircher's Three-headed Dog full
Description: This engraving, found in Athanasius Kircher's two volume work on music, depicts Orpheus playing the hellhound Cerberus to sleep in order to gain passage to the Underworld. In classical sources, Cerberus was not usually so easily tamed: to the Greeks, he was a monstrous three-headed dog. A glance at Cerberus was said to petrify humans, and his bite was poisonous. Most Greek sources describe Cerberus as possessing three heads, as does Fluffy, the fearsome guard dog who blocks passage to the underground vault guarding the philosopher's stone. Spoiler alert: Harry and his friends take a cue from Orpheus's book and soothe Hogwarts' vicious pup by picking a drowsy tune.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

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: Bodin on Witch Hunting
Description: This little black book with the steeply pointed clasps advertises its contents as "magic" on the spine, but crack it open and you'll find the most influential manual for witch hunting published in France in the sixteenth century. First published in 1580 (this edition is from 1593), Jean Bodin's Demonomanie argues that any measure necessary should be applied in order to catch practitioners of sorcery, including allowing children to testify against their parents.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

Title: Hernández's Dragon Skeleton
Description: Spanish physician Francisco Hernández published the first natural history of Mexico in 1651, and in it reproduces this desiccated dragon, said to have belonged to Cardinal Barbarini. Barbarini's specimen impressed the members of the early Italian Society of the Lynx, and a live rendering can be found in Ulisse Aldrovandi. Daydreaming Defense Against the Dark Arts students will be the first to notice that a dragon skeleton hangs from the ceiling of their classroom. As Gilderoy Lockhart drones on, imagine you're off hunting in Romania with Charlie Weasley.
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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Aldrovandi's Snakes
Description: If the Sorting Hat sent you to Slytherin in first year, no doubt you'll be charmed by these two fabulously scaly serpents, who seem almost to wriggle right off the pages of Ulisse Aldrovandi's 1640 volume on snakes and dragons. Fear not if you're not a fan of Slytherin's mascot: the common Aesculepian snake (left) and the black Aesculepian snake (right) aren't venomous. Aldrovandi reopens the debate about snake generation in this book, puzzling over the suggestion that snakes come from the eggs of a rooster. Is there a Parselmouth in the house? We'll just have to ask.
Collection: How to Pass Your O.W.L.s at Hogwarts: A Prep Course

LIBRARY DIGITAL COLLECTIONS & EXHIBITS

Warning message

Pages

Pages