Beyond the Reading Room

Posts on August 2016
from Beyond the Reading Room

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The Secret of Secrets and the History of Medicine

Our featured book today is a fourteenth-century Latin manuscript of a medieval bestseller: the Secret of Secrets (Secretum secretorum). Wrongly attributed to Aristotle, and originally composed in Arabic in the eighth century, the content of this work has been gradually shaped, and changed, by scribes and translators throughout the centuries. From being conceived as a manual about kingship, it eventually became one of the most popular medical treatises in the Middle Ages.

Conservation of a Seventeenth-century Latin Phrasebook

Guest post from Allison Donnelly, a 2016 U-M graduate and student intern at the library's conservation lab, describing her work on a recently acquired seventeenth-century Latin phrasebook!

A Happy 254th Birthday to "Queen Molly"!

In 1824, Mary Randolph poured a lifetime's worth of experience as manager of a grand estate into a single unassuming volume of recipes and household hints. Arguably America's first regional cookbook, The Virginia House-wife represents decades of changing fortunes and evolving palates for the Randolphs, and indeed the whole country, in the years immediately proceeding the Revolutionary War.