Cures, Remedies, and Recipes: Treasures of MIA Library

Drawing from the Library’s distinguished holdings, including the Gastronomy Collection, this display features manuscripts and printed works that reflect how communities have understood and managed health through food, remedies, and social practices. Several items are on public view for the first time.

• Tacuinum sanitatis (1531) is the Latinized name of the Arabic medical manual Taqwīm al-Ṣiḥḥa ("Maintenance of Health"), attributed to Ibn Buṭlān, a 11th-century physician from Baghdad.
• Ibn Buṭlān’s Taqwīm al-Ṣiḥḥa and al-Rāzī’s Treatise on the Smallpox and Measles are rare Arabic medical texts that highlight the foundational contributions to the fields of science and wellness.
• Al-Dakhīra by Thābit ibn Qurrah.
• Notable highlights include English household recipe books from the 17th and 18th centuries, written by women such as Mary Barry and Alice Gardiner, blending culinary knowledge with home remedies.
• Richly illustrated 19th-century French menu albums by Viscount Frédéric de Janz.
• Etiquette manuals from England and Italy, offer a glimpse into the dining rituals and manners that shaped social life.
• A page from Beethoven’s 1825 household ledger provides a personal reflection on domestic management during his final years.

Together, these works illuminate a global history in which food functioned as medicine, healing was rooted in community, and knowledge traveled across generations and cultures.