Jan 16, 2026 2025 Round Up — Another Year in the Books

Dear Rare Reader,

Another year is officially in the books! 2025 was full of collaboration, growth, and impact, all of which was possible because of you — our wonderful, bookish community. Take a look at what we’ve accomplished this year, together.

Cheers for now,
The University of Utah’s Rare Books Department

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Before you go, we want to tell you about some of our favorite acquisitions of the 2025-2026 calendar year…

This book is an early guide to divination using the lines on the forehead. While metoposcopy had been in practice since ancient times, it is here that Girolamo Cardano, a true renaissance man, developed the theory scientifically. Cardano, a practicing physician, intended this text for the use of his fellow clinicians in establishing best courses of treatments for their patients.

Couched in astrology, his methodology involved using the lines, moles, wrinkles and other markings on the face to draw horoscopes about the individual’s character and fortunes.

The content of the book is filled with more images than text, with eight hundred woodcut faces, some covering the entire page.

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The next book of interest is a thinly bound pamphlet which began as a speech delivered by Éléonore-Marie Desbois de Rochefort, an eighteenth-century clergyman and doctor, in 1780. Rochefort wrote the speech in response to town complaints of rotting corpses that were not being properly disposed of. Citizens of the small French town claimed the stench of cadavers was inescapable due to the collapse of a cemetery wall.

Memoire sur les Supltres…
Éléonore-Marie Debois de Rochefort (1749-1807)
Paris: 1780-81

But what makes this copy of Desbois de Rochefort’s speech intriguing is not the content as much as the form. Clearly a printers’ proof the volume contains pages of crossed-out words, edits, and markings. Flipping through the pages it becomes clear: this volume was a means to a greater end.

The full story of this printer’s press is only fully explained when flipping through the first volume of Charles Panckoucke’s Encyclopédie Méthodique: Économie Politique et Diplomatique. Panckoucke, a French writer and printer, began updating Denis Diderot’s famous Encyclopédie in 1775. Panckoucke’s encyclopedia, unlike Diderot’s, is organized by subject matter rather than alphabetically.

Encyclopédie Méthodique: Économie Politique et Diplomatique
Charles Panckoucke (1736-1798)
Paris: Panckoucke, 1784-88
HB61 E52

On Page 575 of Panckoucke’s Économie Politique et Diplomatique there is an article heading with the title “CIMETIERE.” What follows is a near verbatim copy of the poorly made printers’ proof examined above. When compared side by side, the main differences become apparent: the editor’s ink-gall chicken scratch has been seamlessly laced into the final copy, the light printing has been made even, and the previously raised type lays flat.

The last (but not least!) acquired item I want to mention is a Milanese tarot deck from the nineteenth century. Produced by Ferdinand Gumppenberg, a renowned playing card innovator, the deck is known as the Soprafino Tarot.

Tarocchino Milanese
Ferdinando Gumppenberg (fl.1809-1846)
Milan: Real Fabbrica Milano, ca. 1835

Known for its intricate woodblock printings and six earthy colors, the Soprafino deck has had lasting impacts on modern tarot decks and, playing cards more broadly. Produced in 1835, the Soprafino deck went through many printings and reproductions. The University of Utah’s copy is an early edition and includes a beautiful illustration of a minotaur on the back.

If you’re interested in holding any of these new treasures in your hands, you can set up an appointment in our reading room at this link.

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Contributed by Theadora Soter, Rare Books Assistant Curator

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