In the autumn of 1609, the Italian mathematician and astronomer Galileo Galilei turned his telescope to the heavens. When, in 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius, or Starry Messenger, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler responded with enthusiasm, praising the significance of Galileo’s observations with his own Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo, or, Conversations with the Starry Messenger (1610). This exhibition reveals European observations of the heavens from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century.
Date created: April 2009

An introduction to American utopias—from the first Puritan settlements to the communes of the 1960s—through literary works and manuscript collections in the Beinecke Library.
Date created: 2006

A collaborative project created by the undergraduate students in Brian Noell's seminar "The Medieval World of Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose." The Speculum Theologiae explores the Beinecke Library's manuscript MS 416, a late thirteenth-century or early fourteenth-century collection of mnemonic devices from the Cistercian abbey of Kamp in western Germany.
Date created: Spring 2006

A Polish online exhibition in observance of the centenary of the birth of the Polish playwright and novelist Witold Gombrowicz.
Date created: 2006

An online exhibition commemorating the 700th anniversary of Francesco Petrarca, the Italian Renaissance Humanist, born July 20, 1304.
Date created: September 2004

An exhibition examining the careers and lives of women—writers, artists, publishers, performers, collaborators, and community builders—whose energies set in motion lasting aesthetic and cultural practices.
Date created: July 2003

An online exhibtion in observance of the centenary of the birth of Langston Hughes (1902-1967), Harlem Renaissance poet, novelist, and playwright.
Date created: February 2002

An exhibition devoted to the Bollingen Prize, a prestigious literary honor bestowed on a poet in recognition of the best book of new verse within the last two years, or for lifetime achievement.
Date created: 2002 (Updated biennially with each award recipient)

An online exhibition of the photographer David Plowden who has documented vanishing landscapes and artifacts, forming an image of life in 20th century urban and rural America.
Date created: September 1997

An online exhibition displaying illustrated traveler's narratives and original art by travelers from the later 18th to the late 19th century.
Date created: September 1996