The Public Domain Review

“Oh, if I could only pray”, Luther once said of his dog Tölpel, “the way this dog watches the meat”. Attending to attentive canine figures in half a dozen paintings by Paolo Veronese, Thomas W. Laqueur explores the work of an artist whose love of dogs landed him in hot water with the Inquisition.

By manipulating paper flaps, the child could turn Adam into Eve into a mermaid, a lion into a griffin into an eagle — all while learning about the inevitability of death.

The letters, almost illegible, seem to dissolve any defensible boundary between penmanship and artistry, proving that writing — even when it is unreadable — can overflow with aesthetic and emotional significance. Some of these designs look much more modern, but the book was published in 1655.

Centuries before Neo instantly mastered Kung Fu in The Matrix, medieval scholars found a shortcut to years of difficult study: a magical manuscript that promised to fast-track advanced learning. Anne Lawrence-Mathers investigates the Ars notoria, its supposed powers, and the demonic influence it had upon some users.

Cover designs for José Carlos Mariátegui’s radical Lima-based magazine.