Was looking up old binding methods and found out medieval bookbinders used human skin for covers sometimes

I was reading through some conservation blogs last night and stumbled on this fact about anthropodermic bibliopegy. Apparently there are still like 50 or so books in existence with human skin bindings from the 1600s and 1700s. Most were done by doctors binding their own medical texts with skin from patients who died. Kinda wild to think about how different the industry was back then. Has anyone else come across weird historical binding materials they didn't expect?

2 comments

2 Comments

sam_anderson1mo ago

Most were done by doctors" yeah but is that really weirder than using cow or goat leather though?

brookepark1mo ago

Depends what you mean by weirder. Leather you can at least wash and it ages well. Human skin books, you gotta worry about humidity and oils from your hands wrecking the cover. Plus if you ever move, good luck explaining that to the movers. I had a buddy who collected old medical texts and one had a binding made from a patient, he kept it in a zip lock bag just to be safe. Cow leather you can beat up and it still looks fine, that's the whole point.