While a heart-shaped book is unusual, it is not unique. The rising interest in book ownership and reading in the middle ages encouraged the codex to become not just a symbol of social status but of one’s intellectual and spiritual status--one’s heart. Even before physical heart-shaped books were made there existed this notion of the “book of the heart,” where one's heart was a book, containing one's thoughts, feelings, and memories. Even today, this concept of self-as-book lingers. We ”read” someone’s mind or wish to “turn over a new leaf.”

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This model was inspired by the painting Young Man Holding a Book (~1480). This model was made during the Historical Book Structures Practicum, a month-long summer 2022 LACE workshop taught by Jeff Peachey.