These Bizarre Ivory Cups Were Carved by Princes
The royal houses of Europe felt that it would be good for their sons to learn a manual trade. Artisans taught nobles to carve ivory on a lathe.
The Souls of Magnets
Lodestones are dull, lumpy, and slate-gray, but their “magnetic intelligence” made them fabulously expensive.
William Blake, Radical Abolitionist
Blake’s works offer an alternative to the failures of the Enlightenment, which couldn’t muster a consistent argument for abolition.
That Time a Woman Rode Aristotle Around Like a Horse
In the Middle Ages, the legend of Aristotle and Phyllis exemplified the “Power of Women” trope.
How to Create a Human Being
The Book of Stones, a central alchemical text, contained formulae with the power to create living tissue from ordinary matter, supposedly.