Archbishop Marsh's Library

25/06/2026

The marvellous weighing machine of Santorio Santori! For 30 years the Italian physician weighed himself, everything he ate & drank, & everything he...expelled. He realised there was a difference in the weight of what he consumed and excreted. This insensible perspiration is the loss of excess weight as water & carbon dioxide via the skin & respiration. His experiment was pioneering and introduced quantitative research to the study of medicine.

24/06/2026

Good wine for good health! Dietary advice from 'Regimen sanitatis Salerni', a hugely popular Medieval guide to good health. This is from an English translation printed in 1624.

23/06/2026

A lovely piece by Olga Taranova about our new exhibition to mark the 300th anniversary of the publication of Gulliver's Travels: https://www.rte.ie/culture/2026/0622/1578511-why-gullivers-travels-still-speaks-to-the-modern-world

22/06/2026

A manicule, or pointing finger, added by an early reader to an important passage in Pope Gregory's Moralia, printed 546 years ago. The section reminds us to look on the bright side of adversity & not rest on our laurels!

15/06/2026

The latest round of our Maddock Research Fellowships has just been advertised. Come and work in our exciting research collection: https://marshlibrary.ie/about/news-events/fellowships/

15/06/2026

Trefoils indicating importance, in the margin of a very well-thumbed manual of Greek pronunciation from 1555. The title page gives us no fewer than three inscribers, all vying for space to claim ownership.

13/06/2026

Glasgow and its surrounding, from Blaeu's Atlas Major, vol. 5, Scotland and Ireland, printed 1662-5.

12/06/2026

"Gutenberg's Cradle" is a book by Sara D'Amico about the gorgeous books in our collection published in the decades immediately after the invention of printing with moveable type.
It has been nominated for the prestigious 2026 ILAB Breslauer Prize for Bibliography.
You can purchase a copy of this beautifully designed book here:

Gutenberg’s Cradle is a beautifully illustrated book about the 75 texts in Marsh's Library that were published across Europe in the half-century after the invention of printing with moveable type. A striking feature of these books is how quickly printers perfected the new technology. Many contain ...

11/06/2026

The sounds of Marsh's Library : part 1

10/06/2026

No more Rivals until November?! We'll just have to occupy ourselves with medieval romance until then! From Le Rommant de la rose, 1526.