Ptolemy’s Geography
Facsimile of the original manuscript of the earliest Latin translation of the second century Greek-Egyptian geographer, astronomer, and mathematician Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography from 1472. It contains Ptolemy’s calculations of longitude and latitude coordinates of the known world of the second century along with 44 maps. Ptolemy’s descriptions led Christopher Columbus on his travels, and his geocentric system was the accepted world view for more than 1,000 years until Copernicus. The manuscript is housed in the Vatican Library.
The Ambrosian Iliad
Facsimile of the original manuscript from the 5th century housed in the Ambrosian Library in Milan. It is the oldest preserved illustration of Homer’s Iliad, possibly by the artist of the illuminated Vergilius Vaticanus, a similarly illuminated manuscript in the Vatican Library from the 5th century of Vergil’s Aeneid and Georgics.
The Vienna Dioscorides
Facsimile of the original manuscript from ca. 512 Constantinople. The manuscript is housed in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. It contains illustrations and descriptions of some 600 curative plants, the oldest dedication portrait (of Anicia Juliana), the oldest ornithological treatise, and the oldest gold leaf background which came to characterize Byzantine large and small scale paintings and mosaics. The text influenced Galen and others and was used by hospitals and medical schools for more than 1,500 years.
Athenian Democracy
An exhibit in connection with the Greek Independence Day celebration of CHS and the Greek Embassy on March 25, 2025 featuring books on Athens’ democratic system from the sixth to the fourth centuries BCE, the heyday of Greece’s political and economic power, its greatest temples, sculpture, vase paintings, theater, prose, science and philosophy.
Ancient Greek Language
An exhibit in connection with the International Greek Language Day, February 9, 2025 marking the beginnings of Greek reflected in a modern rendering of Linear B to grammars from the nineteenth century and the work which has introduced numerous students to ancient Greek, Homer’s Iliad, represented by a facsimile of Venetus A, Villoison’s discovery of the manuscript, Wolf’s Prolegomena and the modern debate around the Homeric Question.
Herodotus and the Year 480 B.C.E.
An exhibit in connection with this year’s Distinguished Lecture by Suzanne Marchand on February 5, 2025, discussing the year 480 BCE and its elevation in the course of the historiographical developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing especially on how the post-classical readings of Herodotus changed over time, in the exhibit represented by various editions of Herodotus’ text from 1618 (Jungermann) until today.
