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This is the title page of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, which was published in 1792. Wollstonecraft was a prolific English writer and powerful advocate for women’s rights, as the title of this book suggests. Chapter XII,…

With this image of the Jesuit theater in the Collège de Clermont, we return to one of the oldest established places of education in Europe—the University of Paris. The Collège de Clermont was one of the earliest schools established by the Jesuits,…

This is an engraving of the Gustavianum, the oldest standing building in Uppsala University. It owes both its name and construction to Gustavus Adolphus, a Swedish king who enacted many reforms in the country. Sweden was largely ignored by Europe,…

While a compiled work of Thomas Sydenham's has already been included in this exhibit, it is valuable to consider one of his work’s influence in English economic history and the history of opium as a whole. In his book discussing medical observations…

Here we have the frontispiece, or illustration facing the title page, of Thomas Hobbes’s De Cive, commonly translated as “On the citizen.” I have chosen this work as illustrative of the general trends in philosophical writings of the time that…

According to stories the first discovery of “Jesuit’s bark,” or cinchona bark, occurred in the 17th century. As the story goes a large storm passed through a village in Peru, knocking a number of the branches into a pool of standing water. It…

Completed in 1768 by J. June, this etching depicts licentiates of the Royal College of Physicians marching in protest at Warwick-Lane Castle in 1767. These “medical militants”, as the artist calls them, were expressing their grievances with the…

Menasseh ben Israel, a Sephardic Jewish rabbi from Amsterdam, embodies aspects of the religious environment of the Dutch Republic during the 17th century. Throughout the 17th century, Jewish communities from both Iberia (Sephardic) and Germany…

Though Europe in the 18th century was wracked by internal conflict between great powers and there was significant focus among European intellectuals on domestic matters such as economic or agricultural policy, the continent by no means withdrew or…

Pictured in this engraving is Marie Angélique Arnauld, who served as abbess of the Abbey of Port-Royal near Paris. She was a leading proponent of Jansenism, a theological movement in seventeenth century France. It emphasized the reading of Scripture…

Le Petit Trianon is a château on the Palace of Versailles grounds. Its construction started in 1758 under the order of Louis XV and was completed in 1768 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel, one of Louis XV's favorite architects during the time period. Gabriel's…

In the face of a proliferation of Protestant books and other writings across the European continent, the papacy created the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, “the Index of Banned Books.” By outlawing the ownership and reading of works that expressed…