Perfect bodies

The British Museum have just published Perfect bodies: sports, medicine and immortality, edited by Vivienne Lo. Based on an interdisciplinary conference and other academic events and exhibitions which began in 2007, this book explores ideas and training and preserving the perfect body. The chapters in the book reveal the changing ideas about how exercise contributes to health and the history of sport and body cultivation. In the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics, this book explores the diverse traditions of perfecting body and soul including early Chinese kickball games, Andreas Vesalius's De humani corporis fabrica of 1543 and twentieth century Chinese exercises to do while brushing teeth. Illustrated throughout, this book is at NLS shelfmark OP6.212.44/2.

Fewer than nine lives

Medieval Cats, new to OPU's collection this week.

Cats are illustrated in medieval manuscripts throughout the Middle Ages, often in exquisite detail. Medieval cats were viewed as treasured pets, as fearsome mousers, as canny characters in fables, as associates of the Devil and as magical creatures. A medieval cat had fewer than nine lives to toy with - danger was never far around the corner, whether in the form of a fur-trader or by being burnt alive in popular celebrations.

This charming book, published by the British Museum, features an array of fascinating images of cats in medieval manuscripts. The book also includes anecdotes about cats - both real and imaginary - to provide an interesting picture of the life of the cat and its relationship with humans in the medieval world.

(Text adapted from front flap of book)

Spring time

Spring into the Official Publications Unit.




Spring is now appearing, and as you walk around Edinburgh the display of crocuses, snowdrops and primroses are breathtaking.
I thought that I should celebrate the emergence of springtime with an exhibition in the display cabinet outside the Official Publications Unit in our Causewayside building.
The items that I chose for the display are beautifully illustrated books, ranging from The art of natural history illustrated treatises and botanical paintings 1400-1850 with a lovely drawing of an Iris on the cover to Artists Kew which has the drawing of the huge green house on the cover, to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh periodical Botanics which has a cover of snowdrops.
I also relate Easter with spring time and I thought a picture of a cross from the book The British Museum Christ was quite apt.
Why not come along and see for yourself this slightly different aspect of Official Publications.