Summa was a medieval literary genre that aimed to cover the whole terrain of a subject, at once a sum total and a handbook of essentials. This modern-day Summa has as its subject the collective imaginary of protection–from the magical properties of amulets and talismans to ancient rites and private divinations. This inaugural edition is a kind of origin story: a primer on materials, vessels and objects of protection, it considers our attachment to the stories they tell.
