Kenneth Spencer Research Library

Easter Sunday …  after dinner they brought us an enormous sort of cake to look at – it is made of flour, lard, cheese, & quantities of eggs – the name is Pizza – or Torta – one of these we saw must have been 4 feet in circumference – it is made at Easter – only in this part of the country not in Rome – it is rather good – very light – but too strong of the cheese – they eat this cake – sausages – eggs which have been blessed (so has the cake) and wash it down with the best wine which is stored up for the occasion – such is their Easter feast. …

Entered by Pauline Trevelyan in her diary,  Spoleto, Italy, 27 March 1842 , call number: MS C133

Traditional pizza recipes vary greatly in different regions of Italy. In her journal entry for Easter Sunday 1842 Pauline Trevelyan describes her first taste of Umbrian Easter pizza, a tall round loaf of cheese-flavored bread traditionally served with sliced Italian sausage and hard-boiled eggs. The photograph featured below shows the tasty recreation of that meal submitted to the recent University of Kansas Libraries edible book competition.

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In Medieval Europe books were a precious commodity. Books were hand-copied manuscripts, and might be fashioned with metal hardware to chain them to a bookcase or desk to protect them from theft.

Sermones de sanctis by Frater Soccus. [Germany?] ca. 1370. Call Number: MS D84

This book is a bound manuscript likely from Germany, dated circa 1370. The text is Sermones de sanctis (call number: MS D84), writings of Frater Soccus, a monk from the Cistercian order.  The pigskin binding, tooled all over the covers, has a chain attached to the back board at the top. Storing this on a modern shelf created problems, as the chain drapes down the back cover and makes it impossible to place another book next to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Did you know that the Kenneth Spencer Research Library has a KU-themed Monopoly game or a memory game created by Mark Twain?  Come see the diversity of the Spencer Library’s collections presented in a new exhibition entitled “Riddle Me This: A History of Games and Puzzles.”

“Riddle Me This” exhibition. Right: Gavitt’s Stock Exchange (G-S-E).
Topeka, Kan.: W.W. Gavitt Printing and Publishing Co., 1903. Call number: RH E615

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