A major exhibition giving insights into the ways early books were decorated, annotated, bound, used and abused by their owners in the first hundred years after the development of the printing press by Johann Gutenberg.
Venue: Milstein Exhibition Centre, and viewable online
The Venetian printer Aldus Manutius produced nearly 120 editions during his twenty-year career from 1495 to 1515. This exhibition displays a selection of his works, which are renowned for their purity of proportion and elegance of the founts, and changed the appearance of books for ever.
Venue: Entrance Hall cases, and an extended version online
An exhibition to mark 350 years since the publication of Hooke’s Micrographia, the first English book dedicated entirely to the results of microscopic research. The Library’s two copies of the first edition will be displayed, alongside several books from Hooke’s own extensive library.
An exhibition commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Paris, showing books published, mainly in France, after the liberation of Paris and before the end of 1946, on the subjects of the Second World War, the German occupation of France, and the eventual liberation by the Allies.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
A virtual exhibition marking 500 years since the birth of the ground-breaking anatomist Andreas Vesalius, including images from Cambridge University Library’s unique hand-coloured copy of his Epitome of the seven books on the fabric of the human body.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
An exhibition by Julien Domercq, winner of the inaugural Cambridge University Library/History of Art Student Curatorial Competition, tracing the development of the print iconography of the death of Captain Cook.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
On D-Day, 6 June 1944, David Holbrook landed in Normandy as a twenty-one year old tank commander. His 1966 novel Flesh wounds recounted his experiences. This exhibition draws on Holbrook’s literary archive, held in the University Library, to mark the 70th anniversary of the invasion.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
An exhibition tracing the development of medieval literature in French, and the manuscript culture through which it was conveyed across Europe and beyond.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
An exhibition tracing the composition of John Riley’s poem Czargrad, from early notebook jottings through manuscript and typescript drafts to the first appearances in print. Click on the image to enter the virtual exhibition.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
An exhibition of different ways in which colour was printed in books in Tudor England, resulting from the research of 2012-13 Munby Fellow of Bibliography Dr Elizabeth Upper.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
An exhibition of nineteenth-century Spanish and English pamphlets and broadsides illustrating wrongdoing, crime and retribution; why did people behave badly, and how did others find out what they had been up to? The display included tales of bandits, pirates, murderesses, poisoners and many more malefactors in highly (and gruesomely) illustrated detail.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
A virtual exhibition celebrating the tercentenary of the birth of Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713), author most famously of The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman. His works have inspired numerous imitations and parodies, and illustrations by Hogarth, Cruikshank and many others.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
A display of early illustrated medical books from the collection of the distinguished surgeon and scholar Sir Geoffrey Keynes (1887–1982), acquired by Cambridge University Library in 1982.
View online by clicking on the image to the left.
For older exhibitions at Cambridge Unversity Library, see our Previous exhibitions page.