When the Codex Overtook the Scroll as the Format for Books

Recently, following the article we published about the origins of the books in the Library of Alexandria, a somewhat finicky…

The oldest surviving text of Latin prose is a manual of agriculture and recipes, including the placenta cake

As we mentioned in a previous article, only one percent of all the literature produced by the Romans in Antiquity…

The Missal of Silos, the oldest European book made of paper

Egyptians wrote on papyrus, a material made from the plant of the same name (Cyperus papyrus) that grows on the…

The Russian novel that inverts the roles in The Lord of the Rings: Sauron and the orcs are the good ones

It is doubtful that there is anyone who has not heard, even by minimal references, of The Lord of the…

The Iliad and the Odyssey are just two of the eight poems from the Epic Cycle that narrate the Trojan War.

The Epic Cycle, also called the Trojan Cycle because it narrates events related to the Trojan War, is a collection…