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Amelia Soth

Amelia Soth

Amelia Soth is a Wisconsin-based writer. She also writes and edits for Mouse Magazine, and more of her writing can be found at ameliasoth.com.

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Sultan Mehmed III of the Ottoman Empire
Cabinet of Curiosities

Why Ottoman Sultans Locked Away Their Brothers

Fratricide among rival princes was legal and widely practiced until 1603, so confinement to the palace was actually an improvement.
Pendant in the Form of Neptune and a Sea Monster
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Lumpy Pearls That Enchanted the Medicis

There’s a specific term for these irregular pearls: “baroque,” from the Portuguese barroco.
"The Vexed Man" by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt at The Getty Center in Los Angeles, California.
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Man Whose Face Got Stuck Like That

No one could have predicted Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s turn to the bizarre.
The Dance of Death
Cabinet of Curiosities

A Roman Feast… of Death!

The banquet hall was painted black from ceiling to floor. By the pale flicker of grave lamps, the invited senators coud make out a row of tombstones.
The cover of A Book to Burn by Li Zhi
Cabinet of Curiosities

Burn This Book!

Li Zhi’s exasperation with the corruption, greed, and superficiality of the powerbrokers in his society fueled his rebellious writing.
Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim (Paracelsus)
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Occult Remedy the Puritans Embraced

Why did the Puritans embrace a medical treatment that looked suspiciously like black magic?
Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia by Michiel Jansz. van Miereveldt
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Afterlife of Royal Hair

Whether worn as a lovelock or set in elaborate jewelry, the clipped-off hair of Kings and Queens outlived the monarchs themselves.
A paper theater
Cabinet of Curiosities

Paper Theaters: The Home Entertainment of Yesteryear

In the nineteenth century, enterprising toymakers developed a novel way to bring theater into the home.
A lode stone encased in a gilded stand
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Souls of Magnets

Lodestones are dull, lumpy, and slate-gray, but their “magnetic intelligence” made them fabulously expensive.
Rustam captures the King of Mâzandarân and takes him before the tent of Kay Kâ'ûs.
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Movable Tent Cities of the Ottoman Empire

The most lavish among them were festooned with colorful appliqué and brightened with gilded leather.
Scottish quack doctor James Graham
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Prince of Quacks (and How He Captivated London)

James Graham, founder of the Temple of Health, benefitted from his undeniable flair for showmanship and his talent for leaping on trends.
Allegorical Groups Representing the Four Continents: America by Francesco Bertos
Cabinet of Curiosities

These Gravity-Defying Sculptures Provoked Accusations of Demonic Possession

Demons and artists, it seems, pull from the same bag of tricks. They take ordinary matter and transform it into something more wondrous, more terrifying.
A physician administers leeches to a patient. Colour reproduction of a lithograph by F-S. Delpech after L. Boilly, 1827.
Cabinet of Curiosities

Why Did the Victorians Harbor Warm Feelings for Leeches?

Medical authorities wrote about leeches as if they sucked blood out of the goodness of their hearts.
A basilisk with a beam of light extending from its eye
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Extremely Real Science behind the Basilisk’s Lethal Gaze

According to the extramission theory of vision, our eyes send out beams of elemental fire that spread, nerve like, to create the visual field.
From a poster for Charles Frohman’s dramatic production, The Hand of Destiny by Pierre Decourcelle, 1896
Cabinet of Curiosities

Why Did “Thieves’ Cant” Carry an Unshakeable Allure?

If thieves’ cant—a language known only to criminals—was the Devil’s cabinet, bourgeois society couldn’t help but peep inside.
Pope Formosus and Stephen VI by Jean Paul Laurens, 1870
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Cadaver Synod: Putting a Dead Pope on Trial

Why did Pope Stephen VI go to such great lengths to destroy an enemy who was already dead?
Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Willem van der Meer by Michiel van Mierevelt
Cabinet of Curiosities

Public Dissection Was a Gruesome Spectacle

Renaissance-era anatomists taught people to “knowe thyself” by reading the books of bodies.
Tarantella dancers, 1828
Cabinet of Curiosities

When Dancing Plagues Struck Medieval Europe

The tarantella is named for a peasant woman from southern Italy whose tarantula bite started a contagious dancing fever!
Zen Encounter (Niaoke Daolin and Bai Juyi)
Cabinet of Curiosities

Elixirs of Immortal Life Were a Deadly Obsession

Ironically enough.
Image from Livre des profits ruraux (late 15th century France)
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Landlord Asks for a Christmas Rose

Bizarre customs of landholding—from demands for flowers to ritualized flatulence—reflect the philosophy that developed under the feudal system.
A contraption used to extract the silk from a spider
Cabinet of Curiosities

The Tangled History of Weaving with Spider Silk

Spider silk is as strong as steel and as light as a feather, but attempts to industrialize its production have gotten stuck, so to speak.
Otto Marseus van Schrieck - Stilleben mit Insekten und Amphibien, 1662
Cabinet of Curiosities

A Recipe for Flies and Frogs

And other wonders of spontaneous generation.
creepy old house at night
Cabinet of Curiosities

There’s Someone Buried under the Floor!

The story of a building that will not stand until a living human being is imprisoned in its foundations is so common as to form it own genre.
Folio from a Falnama (Book of omens)
Cabinet of Curiosities

A Book of Divination for the End of the World

The Falnama, or Book of Omens, combined apocalyptic representations from many sources. Say a prayer, ask your question, and flip to a random page.
bezoar goat
Cabinet of Curiosities

From the Belly of a Goat to the Mouth of a King

Bezoars, a strange lump formed in the belly of a goat, once were considered a panacea, and worth more than their weight in gold.

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