“Bella Donna,” 1939

In 1940, American artist Georgia O’Keeffe was quoted as saying, “My painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me.” Today, that spirit of generosity lives on through the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Sante Fe, which has been working to make every single one of her artworks available to view online via the newly launched portal, Access O’Keeffe.

O’Keeffe’s stunning flower paintings are some of the most iconic paintings from the 20th century, but the artist painted many more subjects, including landscapes, animals, skulls, and the sky. On Access O’Keeffe, you can now browse over 2,000 of the artist’s works by theme, timeframe, or medium. The online collection also includes over 850 works by other artists in the O’Keeffe Museum collection, including photographers of O’Keeffe and her surrounding landscapes in New Mexico where she lived from 1949 until her death in 1986.

The huge archive also includes photos, letters, and other ephemera relating to O’Keeffe. You can even explore some of the artist’s personal belongings, including furnishings, clothing, art materials, source materials for artworks such as bones and rocks, and books from her personal library.

As you browse the digital archive, you’ll come across high-resolution images of O’Keeffe’s artworks that you can download and use for educational or creative projects. Each piece includes a description, and you can explore its wider context by seeing what works came before and after, and where it has been exhibited. You can also save your favorites to return to later, making it a great resource for diving into O’Keeffe’s life and work.

Explore Access O’Keeffe here.

Georgia O’Keeffe Museum just launched Access O’Keeffe, a digitized archive of every known work by the artist.

“Crab’s Claw Ginger Hawaii,” 1939

This project is an extension of O’Keeffe’s own desire to share her work, having said: “My painting is what I have to give back to the world for what the world gives to me.”

“2 Calla Lilies on Pink,” 1928

You can now browse over 2,000 of Georgia O’Keeffe’s works by theme, timeframe, or medium.

“Blue and Green Music,” 1919–21

And though the artist is best known for her flower paintings, her body of work also includes landscapes, animals, skulls, and the sky.

“Above the Clouds I,” 1962–63

Access O’Keeffe: Website

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READ: Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Unveils Digital Archive of the Artist’s Entire Body of Work

3D scan of Vincent van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Cypresses,” 1889.

As part of its Open Access initiative, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has published more than 100 high-definition 3D scans of art historical objects. These models have been carefully curated from the museum’s collection, which encompasses some 1.5 million works across media such as sculpture, painting, textiles, jewelry, calligraphy, and more.

The research-grade models boast “precise color accuracy and exceptionally high fidelity,” according to a statement, offering a dynamic glimpse into each object’s texture, composition, and hidden details that may otherwise go unnoticed. Now, visitors can explore terracotta oil flasks from ancient Greece, an iconic Claude Monet painting from 1891, proto-Cuneiform tablets, and sliding-door panels from Japan’s Edo period with exceptional clarity—and without the hassle of protective display cases. As with the rest of the Met’s expansive database, these entries are accompanied by descriptive texts that distill their relevance and history, alongside an assortment of lavish, 2D imagery.

For this project, the Met’s Imaging Department also collaborated with NHK (Japanese Broadcasting Cooperation), creating nine ambitious visualizations through portable laser scanning systems and camera-based photogrammetry techniques. Vincent van Gogh’s 1889 Wheat Field with Cypresses, for example, receives a decadent 3D treatment, capturing the artist’s thick brush strokes and vibrant color palette. Equally exquisite is the scan of King Henry II armor from 1555. This model showcases one of the most elaborate and complete French parade armors, unveiling its intricate patterns, golden sheen, and masterful craftsmanship. Other highlights include models of Antonio Canova’s Perseus with the Head of Medusa and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s Ugolino and His Sons, both monumental sculptures from the 19th century. Following these initial scans, the Met and NHK are currently “exploring further educational programming and potential content using these cutting-edge, best-in class models,” per the museum.

If that’s not enough, the majority of these models are available for free download and use under the Met’s Open Access program and CC0 license. The museum will continue to upload 3D objects to its collection pages as they are created.

To explore these 3D models for yourself, visit the Met’s online database.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has uploaded hi-def 3D scans of nearly 140 objects from its collection, ranging from Egyptian statues to Impressionist paintings.

Vincent van Gogh, “Wheat Field with Cypresses,” 1889. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, “Ugolino and His Sons,” 1865–67. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

3D scan of the “Ugolino and His Sons” sculpture

Sarcophagus of Harkhebit, Late Period (Saite), 595–526 BC. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

3D scan of the Sarcophagus of Harkhebit

Seated figure, Middle Niger artist, 13th century. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

3D scan of the 13th century seated figure sculpture

The objects below also boast 3D scans, offering an unprecedented glimpse into their sculptural forms, details, and more.

Bowl with Persian Inscription, dated 779 AH/1377 CE. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Antonio Canova, “Perseus with the Head of Medusa,” 1804–06. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Marble female figure, Cycladic, 4500–4000 BCE. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Armor of Henry II, King of France, ca. 1555. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Base for a Water Pipe (Huqqa) with Poetry and Flowers, early 18th century, made in India, Deccan. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Head of Gudea, Neo-Sumerian, ca. 2090 BCE. (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask), attributed to the Amasis Painter, ca. 550–530 BCE (Public domain via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Website | Instagram

All images via the Met’s collection database.

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READ: Met Museum Now Lets You Explore 3D Scans of Over 100 Objects From Its Collection

Photo: racorn/Depositphotos

According to The British Psychological Society, the average reading rate is 238 words per minute, with some people reading up to 400 words per minute. This number has to do with the way your eyes have to move across the page or screen, making you lose time and sometimes even focus. But how fast would you be able to read if your eyes didn’t have to move?

The secret seems to be in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), a term coined by psychology professor and researcher Mary Potter. This technique consists of each word appearing on the screen for a brief moment, one after the other, instead of next to each other. For the text that you’re reading right now, your eyes have to move to read each word; but in RSVP, they don’t. Many programs make just one letter of each word appear in red to anchor your eyes on a focal point. The red letter is always in the same position, even if it’s a different character. This way your eyes won’t wander, you can better stay focused, and your brain is able to recognize the letter almost instantly.

For this to work, there are few things to consider. The first, is learning to control and “quiet” the voice that reads each word aloud in your head; just let your eyes do the work. The second has to do with the words within the text, as it has to be a complete, well-structured idea so your brain can fill in the blanks of things you may have missed and predict the upcoming words through context clues. And you also have to be focused and free of distractions to really get your brain going.

“The lab has shown that a sentence can be understood and remembered when presented as rapidly as 12 words per second (using RSVP, rapid serial visual presentation),” says Potter. “In contrast, a sequence of unrelated words (even if no longer than four or five words) is much more difficult to process and only two or three are remembered.”

By doing this, you train your brain to see words as visual processing, teaching your brain to see words as pictures—just like your brain can recognize a logo in a matter of milliseconds, without having to read the letters in it.

To give you an example of what RSVP can do for you, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is 127,633 words long, meaning it would take you 8.5 hours at an average pace of 250 words per minute. But if you could speed up to 900 words per minute, it would take you only 2 hours and 22 minutes; almost the length of the 2005 movie adaptation, which is 2 hours and 7 minutes.

You can give RSVP a try by watching the video below. And if you’d like to give it a go on other reading materials, you can use online tools like SwiftRead and Reedy to input your own texts or the .epub file of a book you’d like to read. Just try different speeds until you find one that’s comfortable and allows you to thoroughly comprehend the text.

The average reading speed is about 238 words per minute. How fast can you read?

Photo: nito103/Depositphotos

A technique known as rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) can help you read up to 900 words per minute by anchoring your eyes on a focal point on a screen.

Photo: mariakarabella/Depositphotos

You can give RSVP a try by watching the video below.

Sources: Most comprehensive review to date finds the average person’s reading speed is slower than previously thought; Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) A Method for Studying Language Processing

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This year, the U.S. public domain will grow even larger, thanks to the addition of thousands of copyrighted books, iconic characters, and artistic masterpieces from 1930. As of January 1, 2026, protections have lapsed for everything from the original Betty Boop to Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage, allowing anyone to use or build upon these works for free and without permission.

In terms of pop culture, highlights include Rover, who, in the years since his introduction in 1930, has been reimagined as Mickey Mouse’s faithful dog Pluto. Rover first appeared in Disney’s The Chain Gang as an unnamed bloodhound and later in The Picnic as Mickey’s pet, bearing a striking resemblance to Pluto with his large eyes, flopping ears, and beaming smile. Even so, the character is distinct, depicted as far less humanoid than his modern counterpart.

Much like Rover, Betty Boop’s original—but not contemporary—design has also entered the public domain. First introduced in Fleischer Studios’ Dizzy Dishes cartoon, set in a restaurant packed with anthropomorphic animals, this version of Betty boasts her familiar kiss curls, pouting lips, doe-like eyes, and flapper appearance. What distinguishes this Betty, though, is a set of elongated dog ears, a feature that was later scrapped and repurposed into the character’s signature golden hoops. Similarly, Betty’s facial expressions merge with more animalistic qualities throughout the cartoon, including her cheeks, which occasionally droop like a bulldog’s jowls.

Aside from this, renowned works of literature are also up for grabs this year. Perhaps most significant is William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, a title that popularized the Southern Gothic genre in the U.S. and beyond. Widely considered to be one of the best novels of the 20th century, As I Lay Dying employs a propulsive, stream-of-consciousness writing technique, chronicling a poor, rural family’s efforts to bury its matriarch in her hometown of Jefferson, Mississippi. Joining Faulkner’s tour-de-force is an exciting assortment of children’s books, including Watty Piper’s illustrated version of The Little Engine That Could and the first four titles in the Nancy Drew series, beginning with The Secret of the Old Clock.

Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front headlines the films entering the public domain this year. The movie, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, is based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, offering a devastating account of World War I through the eyes of a young German soldier. Other films include Victor Heerman’s Animal Crackers, starring the Marx Brothers; Soup to Nuts, which starred later members of the Three Stooges; The Big Trail, for which John Wayne scored his first leading role; Alfred Hitchcock’s Murder!; and even a movie co-written by Salvador Dalí, titled L’Âge d’Or.

“Copyright gives rights to creators and their descendants that provide incentives to create,” Jennifer Jenkins, director of Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain, told CBS News in a 2024 interview. “But the public domain really is the soil for future creativity.”

Sound recordings from 1925 have entered the public domain as well, encompassing a performance by civil rights activist Marian Anderson in Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, and The St. Louis Blues recorded by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong. In 2027, protections for copyrighted works from 1931 will expire. Next year, we can look forward to Universal Pictures’ Frankenstein and Dracula films, alongside Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights, among others.

Discover more works that just entered the public domain via Duke University’s landing page for Public Domain Day 2026.

This year, works from 1930 enter the public domain in the U.S.

This includes William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, the first four Nancy Drew books and the movie adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, among others.

Cover for ‘The Secret of the Old Clock,‘ the first book in the Nancy Drew series. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

First-edition dust jacket cover of William Faulkner’s ‘As I Lay Dying,’ 1930. (Photo via Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)

Sources: January 1, 2026 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1930 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1925!; These notable works are officially in the public domain as 2026 arrives; What’s Entering the Public Domain in 2026: Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, All Quiet on the Western Front, Betty Boop & More

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READ: Here’s What’s Entering the Public Domain in 2026, Including Betty Boop and Nancy Drew

“Print Gallery,” 1956. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

For most of his life, M.C. Escher was largely overlooked by the art world. This can perhaps be attributed to the Dutch artist’s singular—though idiosyncratic—style, which was rooted in mathematics, optical illusions, geometry, and so-called “impossible objects.” But, for those very same reasons, he also attracted wide popular interest beyond art institutions, a reputation that has solidified him as one of the greatest graphic artists of the 20th century. Now, thanks to the Boston Public Library, anyone can explore dozens of Escher’s spellbinding prints via a sprawling online database.

The digitized collection features Escher’s lithographs, each of which seem to reflect the world through a funhouse mirror. Every composition is playful, warped, immersive, and, because of that, demands an attentive eye to be fully enjoyed, challenging us to encounter familiar settings in a new light.

Convex and Concave from 1955, for instance, depicts a strange, labyrinthine structure, traversed by an intriguing cast of characters. One man balances precariously on a ladder, while another plays a trumpet from a window that appears flat rather than three-dimensional. In this piece, Escher betrays his enduring fascination with perspective, distorting architectural conventions with unusual angles, ornamentation, and details.

Another central theme within Escher’s practice was duality, which he often explored through illusions. Day and Night is perhaps one of his most well-known works, showcasing a swarm of both black and white geese flying in opposite directions. As they soar through the sky, the geese bring with them darkness and light, splitting the composition in two as if reminding us, visually, of the juxtaposition between different points in the day. Notably, as the eye travels down the canvas, the geese slowly disintegrate, merging into the fields over which they fly. This sort of “blending” is a common technique in Escher’s work, resulting in captivating and unexpected compositions that encourage active—and continued—engagement.

But Escher didn’t only focus on optical illusions or architectural perspective. He also produced patterned works, such as Development I from 1937. Here, Escher organizes a series of black and white lizards into an interlocking grid. As the pattern flows toward the edges of the canvas, however, forms begin to blur and disappear, transforming instead into standard checkers. When it comes to these repeating motifs, the artist seems to have a preference for animal imagery, often returning to fish, birds, or both.

During his lifetime, Escher created some 450 lithographs, woodcuts, and wood engravings, and more than 2,000 drawings and sketches. Aside from working as a graphic artist, he also illustrated books, designed carpets and banknotes, stamps, murals, and intarsia panels, among other objects. Since his death in 1972, his oeuvre has gained even wider recognition, standing as remarkable achievements in “impossible” art.

Explore more of Escher’s works via the Boston Public Library’s digital commonwealth collection.

The Boston Public Library has digitized dozens of spellbinding prints by Dutch artist M.C. Escher, whose primary interests lay in mathematics, optical illusions, and so-called “impossible objects.”

“Ascending and Descending,” 1960. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

“Gravity,” 1952. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

“Double Planetoid,” 1949. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

“Day and Night,” 1938. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

“Convex and Concave,” 1955. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

“Development I,” 1937. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

“Inside Saint Peter’s,” 1935. (Photo: Courtesy the M.C. Escher Company B.V.)

Sources: M.C. Escher: Biography; Dozens of M.C. Escher Prints Have Been Digitized & Put Online by the Boston Public Library

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The Internet Archive is one of the world’s most sprawling digital databases. It boasts everything from radio shows, manuals, and CD-ROM software to social media videos, religious sermons, and hip-hop mixtapes. But aside from all that, the platform also happens to host a massive archive of nearly 13,000 vintage cookbooks.

Gathering books from UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the Prelinger Library, the Internet Archive’s Cookbook and Home Economics Collection offers a compelling glimpse into how gastronomic culture has developed throughout the past several centuries. The majority of books originate from the United States and explore such diverse topics as cookery, textiles, budgeting, and domestic sciences, among many others. Although mostly spanning the 19th to 20th centuries, the collection’s oldest entry hails from 1475.

Cuisines also vary, ranging from Southern and Italian to vegetarian and Mexican-Spanish. Of course, certain culinary genres inspired stereotypical depictions of marginalized groups, revealing attitudes about race, colonialism, immigration, and gender. Southern Recipes, for instance, features a mammy character on its cover, while Chinese Cookery in the Home Kitchen includes an equally derogatory illustration of a Chinese man. Many cookbooks are also specifically dedicated to housewives, seemingly intended for women anxious to please their husbands or fulfill their supposed domestic roles. The Whole Duty of a Woman, from 1737, opens with a preamble about its purpose, geared toward “virgins, wives, [and] widows” alongside “directions” on how to “obtain all useful and fashionable accomplishments suitable to the sex.”

Historical context impacts cookbook content as well. Published in 1918 during the tail end of World War I, Win the War Cook Book compiles “patriotic” recipes and is dedicated to the “mothers of our soldier and sailor boys.” The book implies that, through the act of intentional cooking, women may participate in the “great light of liberty, justice, and equality” from the kitchen. Dried Beans & Peas in Wartime Meals, on the other hand, was published during World War II, and is complete with recipes designed to accommodate rations and limited ingredients.

Taken in its entirety, the collection provides a stunning window into the relationship between food, culture, and national identity across time. In fact, since we last wrote about the database in 2020, it has amassed an additional 2,700 entries, a testament to its rich and constantly evolving content.

Explore the full Cookbook and Home Economics Collection for yourself by visiting the Internet Archive.

The Internet Archive’s Cookbook and Home Economics Collection contains nearly 13,000 archival cookbooks from the past several centuries.

Though mostly American in origin, these cookbooks offer an indispensable glimpse into the relationship between food, culture, and national identity across time.

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One of the most established truths about language is that it’s constantly evolving. Every year, our vocabulary sheds and accumulates words; slang explodes onto the scene while other terms take a step back; and grammatical conventions increasingly accommodate colloquial speech and new idioms. There are, of course, several ways to keep up with this ever-changing landscape, and Dictionary.com is one of them. It certainly helps that, last month, the digital dictionary released its largest word drop yet.

Gathered throughout the first half of 2025, Dictionary.com’s 1,235 new entries highlight how many new words the English language has absorbed. Notably, the latest update reveals that global cultures continue to shape our language, most recently with strong influences from Japanese, French, and Spanish. Okonomiyaki, for instance, has entered our lexicon, in reference to savory Japanese pancakes made with cabbage and other ingredients like noodles, meat, and seafood. Maneki-neko is another newcomer, referring to the good luck statuette of a cat with one raised paw.

Unsurprisingly, fresh trends and slang have also impacted our language this year. Despite being familiar to many of us already, kiss cam has now officially been registered (one especially viral moment at a Coldplay concert may have helped its case for inclusion). Coffee badging signifies a tension between return-to-office mandates and employees who prefer remote work. The term describes those who visit the office just long enough to have coffee or fulfill attendance expectations before returning home to finish the workday.

Beyond this, intensifying prefixes have ballooned in their frequency as well, with Dictionary.com flagging superintelligence, ultrawide, and superyacht as examples. It should come as no surprise that technology and science-related terms have seen an equal amount of growth, given how rapidly both fields have been developing. Geolocate is one such word, whose inclusion could be credited to the popularity of Find My, GeoGuessr, and other location-based services and games.

“This word drop reflects how English continues to evolve and be shaped through cultural exchange, technological innovations, and viral trends,” Dictionary.com wrote in a statement. “The addition of 1,235 new entries is no small feat, but we’re not slowing down.”

Check out the full drop report on Dictionary.com.

Dictionary.com recently released its largest word drop yet, complete with nearly 1,300 new entries.

For the first half of 2025, Dictionary.com noted that global cultures continued to shape our language, most recently with strong influences from Japanese, French, and Spanish.

One new entry was “kiss cam,” whose inclusion may be thanks to a viral moment at a recent Coldplay concert.

All images via Dictionary.com.

Source: Supersized Summer Word Drop 2025

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It’s estimated that there are about 300 million people with color blindness around the world. Despite the significant population with the condition, it can be difficult—and costly—to diagnose, especially in young children. But Navneet Education, one of India’s largest schoolbook publishers, may have found a solution that doesn’t break the bank.

Published earlier this spring, Navneet’s Color Blindness Detection Book serves as a cost-free and discreet resource to screen for color vision deficiencies in children. At first glance, the book blends in with other kids books, complete with vibrant illustrations and playful scenes of animals roaming around nature. Inside, though, the book encourages children to identify different numbers in hidden Ishihara-style patterns, which eye doctors also use to test color vision. Rather than being too explicit, the book cleverly incorporates these patterns in each animal’s design, whether it be on a whale’s belly, a butterfly’s wing, or a snail’s shell.

The Color Blindness Detection Book is, of course, designed with families in mind, but Navneet reasons it should be implemented inside the classroom as well. Given how prominent color coding, schemes, and visuals are within school materials, children with color deficiencies can easily struggle and fall behind academically. Beyond such academic ramifications, the condition can feel alienating, confusing, and challenging to navigate, leading to bullying and isolation from peers.

“Colorblind children often lose confidence early on. They don’t understand why they’re wrong and feel embarrassed when others laugh at their mistakes,” Sunita Mannadiar of Our Lady of Health High School remarked on Navneet’s website. “If we identify the problem early, we can provide the right guidance from the very beginning and make learning inclusive.”

Pallavi Ullal, a counseling psychologist and pediatric therapist, echoed the sentiment: “Early detection is important as it helps [colorblind children] navigate their condition more effectively during their formative years and adopt coping strategies.”

To ensure the resource’s efficacy, Navneet partnered with FCB Group India and an expert team of ophthalmologists and educators. However, the Color Blindness Detection Book isn’t meant to replace ophthalmology appointments, and is instead to be used as an early intervention tool to foster empathy, understanding, and perspective.

“Color blindness often goes undiagnosed,” the Mumbai Optical Association states. “This book bridges that gap, allowing parents and teachers to conduct early screenings. Early detection enables timely ophthalmological evaluation, ensuring children receive the right guidance and accommodations.”

The Color Blindness Detection Book can be downloaded free of charge via Navneet’s website.

Created by Navneet, the Color Blindness Detection Book offers parents and educators a cost-free tool to screen for color vision deficiencies in children.

The book stars a cast of animal characters, each bearing hidden Ishihara-style patterns.

The Color Blindness Detection Book can be downloaded for free via Navneet’s website.

Navneet: Website | Instagram

All images via Navneet’s “Color Blindness Detection Book.”

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After the tremendous success of his 2003 thriller The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown turned his attention to his next set of novels in the series. While writing The Lost Symbol and Inferno, the novelist regularly visited the Ritman Research Institute in Amsterdam, where he had access to some of the world’s strangest and most fascinating occult texts. By 2016, Brown had pledged €300,000 (about $368,000) to the library, helping them digitize their core collection of 5,000 books and 300 manuscripts spanning the 15th to 18th centuries. Now, the first 2,178 books from Ritman’s sprawling catalog are available on their online database.

These texts highlight an array of occult subjects, but most commonly concern mysticism, alchemy, religion, and astrology. Though primarily written in Latin, German, Dutch, and French, some digitized books do hail from English-speaking countries, with several books being published in London and Cambridge in particular. A modest enquiry into the mystery of iniquity from 1664, for example, sees its author explore anti-Christianism and its relationship to “wickedness,” while an essay from 1748 questions the “formation and generation” of spiritual and material beings.

These manuscripts fit neatly into Ritman’s scholarly scope, which focuses on the history of hermetic streams of thought across Europe. Departing from orthodoxy, hermeticism instead veered toward esoteric knowledge, one that was grounded in nature, magic, and the inner workings of a person’s mind and identity. Other than alchemy, hermetic practices also often involved numerology and cryptography, both of which sought to identify the mystical possibilities behind certain letters, numbers, and ratios. Today, esoteric beliefs such as these are widely recognized by and studied throughout academia—but, as Ritman points out, this is only a recent development.

“For a long time, the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica was one of the few places to study this tradition,” they write. “Some of the first scholars associated with the Ritman Research Institute translated foundational writings, making [them] available to both specialists and the general public for the first time.”

There’s plenty to explore in this database, whether it be alchemical recipes or meditations on theology. To dive in for yourself, visit the Ritman Research Institute’s digital library.

Thanks to a donation by Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code, Amsterdam’s Ritman Research Institute has digitized over 2,000 occult texts from the 15th to 18th centuries since 2016.

All images via Ritman Research Institute.

Sources: About: Ritman Research Institute; About: Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica; 2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized & Put Online, Thanks to the Ritman Library and Da Vinci Code Author Dan Brown; End of Europe’s Middle Ages: Hermeticism

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One of the biggest differences between medieval and contemporary life is our current medical knowledge. Today, we boast a plethora of vaccines; we’ve eradicated some of the world’s deadliest diseases; and, above all, our understanding of the human body and its health is far more advanced than it has ever been. We may pop an Advil for a headache or apply Neosporin to a cut, but what did our ancestors in the 15th century do? Curious Cures has some answers.

Funded by a Wellcome Research Resources Award through the University of Cambridge, Curious Cures serves as a meticulous digital archive, complete with 186 medieval manuscripts that contain 8,000 unedited medical recipes. These recipes, or receptaria, were written in Latin, French, and Middle English between the 11th and 16th centuries, with most dating back to the 14th or 15th centuries. Throughout, we encounter commonalities such as ale, white wine, vinegar, milk, and honey, alongside surprising and at times bizarre products like roasted puppy fat, dove feces, fox lungs, salted owl, and eel grease.

Apart from these outlandish ingredients, many recipes also reveal medieval attitudes toward the human body, some of which may strike us as superstitious. One recipe by astrologer, occultist, and alchemist John Dee, for instance, describes a medicinal ointment for curing wounds that can allegedly heal patients at a 30-mile distance. The recipe becomes even more peculiar, with Dee insisting that rather than applying the medicine directly to a wound, it must be applied to the “blooded weapon” that caused the injury to begin with. As to be expected at this point, the recipe’s ingredients are equally unusual: skull moss, human fat and blood, and powdered mummy.

“The gruesome recipe was at the center of a heated debate in which the Calvinist physician Rudolph Goclenius defended the salve, explaining that it operated through magnetic powers between the weapon and wound that [traveled] via the stars, whereas the Jesuit priest Jean Roberti attributed its efficacy to demonic powers,” a Curious Cures researcher writes in an essay about Dee’s remedy.

Some manuscripts veer even more toward the supernatural, with instructions written in Latin for making a mystical amulet that apparently protects its bearer against demons. Another text describes a magical hazel branch that can be used to cure bleeding, while still another emphasizes the Cross as a therapeutic symbol. Beyond such medicinal topics, the contents of the digitized manuscripts also comprise bibles, poetry, mathematics, astronomy, and theology, among other subjects.

To explore the entire database for yourself, visit the Curious Cures page on the University of Cambridge website.

Managed through the University of Cambridge, the Curious Cures database compiles more than 180 medieval manuscripts that contain 8,000 unedited medical recipes.

These medieval medical recipes feature some bizarre ingredients, ranging from skull moss, dove feces, fox lungs, and eel grease.

Though unusual, these recipes offer incredible insight into medieval attitudes toward the human body, medical science, and superstition.

Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries: Website

All images via Curious Cures.

Sources: Medieval Medical Recipes; A Cure from the Crypt: Weapon Salve in the Library of John Dee; Thomas Wort, ‘leech’, and his book of remedies; Curious Cures completed: hundreds of medieval medical manuscripts now accessible; Childbirth and charms: two new online exhibitions

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READ: Explore Medieval Medical Recipes Featuring Dove Feces, Fox Lungs, and More