How to Study, 1636

Ramelli, Le diverse et artificiose machine (1588)

“The best time for studie is early in the morning, when the Planets be favourable to our purpose… Diligent students… must apply themselves earnestly to reading and meditation for the space of an houre: then to remit a little their cogitation, and in the meane time with an Ivory Combe to kembe their head from the forehead backwards about forty times, and to rub their teeth with a coarse linnen cloth. Then to returne againe to meditation for two houres, or one at the least... As for the residue of the day is convenient rather to revolve things reade before, than to reade or muse of new... Nothing is more hurtfull than studying in the night... notwithstanding I know that such as bee good Students indeed doe spare no time neither night nor day from their bookes... Yet would I have none to study so much, that thereby they should fall into sicknesse, or become melancholick... I counsell all students oftentimes to refresh their wearied minds with some sort of melody. For so shall they drive away the dumps of melancholy, and make their spirits more lively to learne.” 

Thomas Cogan, The Haven of Healthe

Secrets for surviving the semester: astrology, good music, and fabulous hair.

How to Survive Your Studies, 1576

"Dear Ask the Past, I'm a grad student currently going through exam period and trying to stay focused... I was just wondering if maybe you have some advice from the past that could help me in this ordeal. Sincerely, A desperate student"

Agostino Ramelli's Book Wheel
Le diverse et artificiose machine (1588)

“We see many great and painfull Studentes, still sitting at their Bookes, wythout taking any regard to their bodily health... Forasmuch therefore as the inwarde and native heate by exercyse and motion, is encreased & strengthened, and the mynde revyved and made lustyer: it standeth all Studentes uppon, and as many as be sickly & of wearish or quaysie health, to use themselves thereunto, and namely to such kinde of exercyse as bryngeth wyth it no wearysomnes or lassitude, but which is stayed within ye boundes of mediocrity: of which sort is a decent straynable and cleare voyce, and reading or declaming wyth a lowde and bigge sound, which is as expedient and as profitable a thing as any, to open ye breast, to stirre up the Spyrites, and to cleare the heart from all grosse and fulsome vapours.”

Levinus Lemnius, The Touchstone of Complexions (1576)

Well, the bad news is that the grosse and fulsome vapours provoked by studying will mess you up if you don't exercise. But the good news is that reading counts as exercise... if you do it with a lowde and bigge sound. This workout technique is sure to charm the other library patrons.