A new exhibition on Renaissance Invention: Stradanus’s Nova Reperta opens today (Friday 28 August 2020) at the Newberry Library.

The exhibition will run from 28 August to 25 November 2020 in the Trienens Galleries at the Newberry Library in Chicago.

Image: Philips Galle after Johannes Stradanus, Lapis polaris magnes (Magnet), circa 1588. Engraving. VAULT Case Wing folio Z 412 .85. Newberry Library, Chicago.

“During a time of globalization, colonization, and warfare, Europeans in the Renaissance embraced new technology even as they lamented its disruptive, destructive, and destabilizing consequences.

“Co-curated by CRS Director Lia Markey and Suzanne Karr Schmidt, the George Amos Poole III Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Newberry, this gallery exhibition explores the conception of novelty and technology through an unprecedented study of Nova Reperta (New Discoveries), a late sixteenth-century print series that celebrated the marvels of the age, including the stirrup, the cure for syphilis, and the so-called discovery of America. Designed in Florence and printed in Antwerp, the Nova Reperta images spread far and wide, shaping Europeans’ perceptions of the innovations that were changing the world and breeding anxiety about the future.

“In Renaissance Invention, materials from the Newberry’s collection will appear alongside armor from the Art Institute of Chicago and astronomical instruments from the Adler Planetarium, transporting visitors to a time of change, disruption, and technological development that bears a striking resemblance to our own today.”

Northern Illinois University students in HIST 422 Early Modern Europe and HIST 522 Microhistories of Early Modern Europe will be particularly interested in this exhibition.

For more information, see the website: https://www.newberry.org/renaissance-invention.