Arts & Culture

Magna Carta on display in Houghton Library

University News |

An Original Magna Carta, Hidden in Plain Sight

A rare original surfaces at Harvard at an “almost providential” moment. 

by Nina Pasquini

A page from a miniature novel written by teenager Charlotte Brontë

Treasure | January-February 2012

Tiny Brontës

Miniature manuscript books by Charlotte Brontë

by Christopher Reed

Treasure | November-December 2011

Envy in Hand

Is this a dagger which I see before me…? Not primarily.

by Christopher Reed

The <i>Invention of Book Printing</i> comes from <i>Nova Reperta</i> (New inventions and discoveries of modern times), by Stradanus (Jan van der Straet), the first such illustrated compendium of postclassical innovations (ca. 1599- 1603). The ability to print many copies of such works revolutionized communication of ideas in the sixteenth century.

Features | November-December 2011

Spheres of Knowledge

An exhibition at the Sackler reveals the connections among Renaissance art, invention, and the evolution of science.

by Jennifer Carling , Jonathan Shaw

Georg Brentel the Younger, from <i>Pamphlet describing the construction and function of a conical sundial,</i> Lauingen: Jacob Winter, 1615. Pamphlet with engravings and woodcuts.

Faculty & Research |

Sundials in Early Modern Europe

Photographs of early modern printed-paper sundials

Jan Sadeler I, after Maarten de Vos,<i> Rhetoric,</i> from the series <i>The Seven Liberal Arts,</i> after 1575. Engraving

Faculty & Research |

The Seven Liberal Arts

Jan Sadeler’s engravings of The Seven Liberal Arts

Theodore Galle, after Stradanus (Jan van der Straet), <i>Discovery of America,</i> from <i>Nova reperta</i> (New inventions and discoveries of modern times), c. 1599–1603. Engraving

Faculty & Research |

Inventions in Early Modern Europe

Images from Stradanus’s "Nova reperta," a series of engravings representing technological innovations of the modern age from the perspective of a practicing artist

Treasure | September-October 2011

Nightmares

A new Archives website offers today's undergraduates a useful perspective on Harvard homework, and life, in the old days.

by Christopher Reed

Right Now | September-October 2011

High-Tech Art Sleuthing

Conservators are using laser-assisted pigment analysis to identify and authenticate the work of modern artists.

Treasure | July-August 2011

Unwhole

Dysfunctional sink with body parts

by Christopher Reed

Treasure | May-June 2011

Gilded Nut

A coconut with Bible stories

by Christopher Reed