'Human skin' book at Harvard found to be bound in sheepskin

The binding material of the Spanish book published in 1605 was determined after an analysis of samples of its covers.

CAMBRIDGE, MA: A 17th century book owned by Harvard Law School, thought to have been bound in human skin because of an inscription that referred to a man "flayed alive," has been shown through scientific testing to have been bound in sheepskin.

The binding material of the Spanish law book published in 1605-1606 was determined after an analysis of nine samples of its front and back covers, binding and glue, Karen Beck, a rare books curator at Harvard Law School Library, said on Friday.

The Harvard conservation scientist who conducted the testing used a technique for identifying proteins called peptide mass fingerprinting to differentiate the samples from other parchment sources such as cattle, deer, goat and human skin, Beck wrote in a post on the Harvard Law School Library blog. The glue was found to consist of cattle and pig collagen.

Curators, dermatologists and others had studied the book for years because of a suggestive inscription on its last page that reads:

"The bynding of this booke is all that remains of my dear friende Jonas Wright, who was flayed alive by the Wavuma on the Fourth Day of August, 1632. King Mbesa did give me the book, it being one of poore Jonas chiefe possessions, together with ample of his skin to bynd it. Requiescat in pace."

The book arrived at Harvard Law School in 1946, Beck said. It may have had a different binding at some point in its history, according to Beck, possibly explaining the mention of 1632 on a book published 1605-06.

Beck questioned why anyone would have written such an inscription if Jonas Wright was actually the name of a sheep and said the inscription instead may have been the product of someone's macabre imagination.

The book — and its sheepskin binding — are being digitized and will be available through the university's online library system later this year.

The practice of binding books in human skin, called anthropodermic bibliopegy, was once somewhat common and has been done since at least the 16th century, according to a Harvard library blog post. Criminals' confessions were occasionally bound in the skin of the convicted or individuals may have asked to be memorialized for family or lovers in the form of a book bound in their skin, it said.

Harvard has two other books thought to be bound in human skin, including a meditation on the soul published by French writer Arsène Houssaye in the 19th century, and an edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses published in the 16th century, said Heather Cole, an assistant curator at the university's Houghton Library.

"There are large pores on the front of it," she said of the Houssaye volume, adding that books are typically bound in calf or sheep leather. "It looks different than the normal kinds of leathers we use to bind books."

Cole said the book contained a note from a doctor who was a friend of the author that said a book about the human soul deserves a human covering. The skin was from a female mental patient who had died of a stroke, she said, though it was unclear whether she was his patient.