The kind of research that I am drawn to tends to focus on things that reside at tricky intersections, or have fallen though the historical cracks. The incredibly broad and multi-disciplinary collection of the Wellcome Library — one that gives equal primacy to the highbrow contemporary academia, forgotten ephemera, art, artifacts, outdated science, and outsider scholarship — makes this the perfect library for the sort of research I do, and allows for all manner of idiosyncratic research that would simply be impossible to conceive of at more conventional libraries.
--"Collector of Hearts" Guest Post, The The Wellcome Library Website

In the post--excerpted above, full post here--I use as a point of departure the randomly stumbled upon and utterly amazing book From Holy Pictures to the Healing Saints: Faith and the Heart. In it, author, doctor and collector N. Boyadjian’s showcases and muses on his wonderful and vast assortment of ‘holy pictures,’ also known as ‘prayer cards,’ or small popular pictures used in “individual intimate devotion” (see top 5 images). Using that book and its chapter on "The Sacred Heart" as a departure point, I then delved into all aspects of the Wellcome Library and Image Collection--digital and print, rare and every day--to ferret out the variety of ways in which the human heart has been approached from the sacred and secular, the symbolic to the medical.

In this fashion, I discovered a dizzying array of curiosities showcasing the depth a breadth of The  Wellcome Library and Collection; just a very few of my favorites: an illustration of "A most true and certaine relation of a strange monster or serpent found in the left ventricle of the heart of John Pennant, gentleman, of the age of 21 yeares" (7th down);  a Carmelite scapular; a theatrical-framed illustration of the "Heart, illustrated as a pumping machine" from 1733; "The vivisector asked to choose between head and heart" from 1886; a dried and preserved human tattoo depicting a sacred heart (9th down); a print of of an anatomist examining the heart of suspiciously beautiful female cadaver ("She Had a Heart," 1890) (6th down); and, perhaps my favorite, a painting of souls in purgatory looking at the wounds of christ (8th down).

You can read the post in its entirety--and see all the amazing images I located, a few of which are even zoom-able in the post!--by clicking here.

Images Captions:

1. From the book From Holy Pictures…to the Healing Saints: Faith and the Heart,
   N. Boyadjian, 1986
2. From the book From Holy Pictures…to the Healing Saints: Faith and the Heart,
   N. Boyadjian, 1986
3. From the book From Holy Pictures…to the Healing Saints: Faith and the Heart,
   N. Boyadjian, 1986
4. From the book From Holy Pictures…to the Healing Saints: Faith and the Heart,
   N. Boyadjian, 1986
5. From the book From Holy Pictures…to the Healing Saints: Faith and the Heart,
   N. Boyadjian, 1986
6. From Wellcome Images: a print of of an anatomist examining the heart of suspiciously beautiful female cadaver ("She Had a Heart," 1890)
7. From Wellcome Images: "A most true and certaine relation of a strange monster or serpent found in the left ventricle of the heart of John Pennant, gentleman, of the age of 21 yeares"
8. From Wellcome Images: a painting of souls in purgatory looking at the wounds of Christ
9. From Wellcome Images :a dried and preserved human tattoo depicting a sacred heart