Mountebank College is a small institution of confident scholarship, offering regalia, ephemera, and prints from its research collections. It takes its name honestly, which is more than the original mountebanks managed. When the word enters written English in 1577, it names a man who mounted a bench in the public square and announced cures for more diseases than any one bottle could plausibly address. From that bench, this institution descends.

The collection is drawn from a genuine archive: patent-medicine advertising, druggists' trade catalogs, natural history plates, and almanacs of the great confident century. The College sources its holdings from the public domain, cites them accurately, and leaves their original claims exactly as it found them.

Visitors should understand that the College is a work of satire. It holds no accreditation, offers no instruction, and confers nothing, a record it has maintained without interruption since 1577. It does not consider the materials offered here to be medical, legal, financial, nutritional, spiritual, or navigational advice, and neither should you. Correspondence directed to the Registrar will be received in the spirit in which it is answered.

Mountebank College is produced by an independent California publishing studio. Wholesale and press inquiries may be directed to registrar@mountebankcollege.org.