Early Modern Period (1450 - 1750) | Science History Institute

Early Modern Period (1450 - 1750)

Innate episode one graphic crop

Origin Stories

Distillations Podcast

Books on display in the library

Covering Science

title page from Utriusque cosmi maioris

A Tale of Two Editions

Women cultivate sugarcane in Jamaica

Sugar: The Most Evil Molecule

Distillations Podcast

Institute VP Michelle DiMeo to Speak at Princeton American Chemical Society Meeting

News

Black and white illustration of sailors in an open boat in a swell

William Dampier, Revered and Reviled

Distillations Article

Portrait of Issac Newton

How To Be Smarter Than Isaac Newton

Distillations Podcast

A portrait of Niccolo Paganini on his deathbed.

Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius as Written by Our Genetic Code

Distillations Podcast

Illustration of fairies around water

River Gods, Lake Monsters, and the Abiding Power of Myth

Distillations Article

Engraving of the alchemical universe 1618

Atlas Obscura: How Scholars Cracked a Medieval Alchemist’s Secret Code

Media Coverage

Engraving of a woman making paper

Chasing the Clues in Isaac Newton’s Manuscripts

Distillations Article

Alchemical emblem

The Conversation: Deciphering the Philosophers’ Stone

Media Coverage

illustrations of chimney sweeps

The ‘Mary Poppins’ Cancer

Distillations Podcast

Cartoon of a pig in a courtroom

Kangaroo (and Pig and Monkey and Dog and Donkey) Courts

Distillations Podcast

Screenshot from A Discovery of Witches TV show

What the All Souls Trilogy Teaches Us about Alchemy, Family, and Knowledge Hierarchy

Distillations Podcast

Philly Materials Day Online: Experiments for Home

Media Coverage

Image of mural by José Clemente Orozco

Let’s Get to Work: Bringing Labor History and the History of Science Together

Visit

Cover of Lady Ranelagh book by Michelle DiMeo

New Biography by Institute’s Library Director Unveils Life and Legacy of Unknown Woman Scientist

Press Release

Did van Trijp

Didi van Trijp

People

Cartoon of group of men dissecting bodies in an attic

The Anatomy Riots

Distillations Podcast

C.C. Dennis using mortar and pestle at Dearborn laboratory

Science History Institute Debuts ‘Mechanochemistry: The Science of Crush’ Digital Exhibition

Press Release

Portrait of Lady Ranelagh

Nature: An Incomparable Intellectual Who Fell through the Cracks of History

Media Coverage

Mock-up photo of a cellphone displaying a QR code

COVID-19 Health Passports: What’s Old Is New Again

Distillations Article

Photo of an old manuscript

The Newton Mess

Distillations Article

Engraving of alchemist and royalty

Dr. Butler and the Quest for the Philosophers’ Stone

Distillations Article

Genre oil painting

Quacks, Plagues, and Pandemics

Distillations Article

A man in a mine, wearing breathing apparatus and holding a lantern, finds asphyxiated miners. Wood engraving, ca. 1900.

The Alchemical Origins of Occupational Medicine

Distillations Podcast

Photo of FDR in a wheelchair

Bonus Episode: Interview with Kim Nielsen

Distillations Podcast

Catalogue image of microscopes

Science and Disability: Part 1

Distillations Podcast

Engraving showing tableau of injected vessel and infant skeletons by Frederick Ruysch,

Collecting Monstrosity

Distillations Podcast

Woodcut of medieval printers at work

Would a Book Lie?

Distillations Article

Engraved portrait of man

Paracelsus, the Alchemist Who Wed Medicine to Magic

Distillations Article

Woman in laboratory at Hercules Hopewell plant

Women in Science

Learn

A close up of a pop-up book

Distilled #11: A 16th-Century Pop-Up Book

Distillations Video

Silver astronomical globe set on a statue of a winged horse

How Renaissance Princes Pursued Beauty in Science

Distillations Article

The Alchymist (1775), an engraving

Hennig Brandt and the Discovery of Phosphorus

Distillations Article

Science history photo collage

Love, Hate, and Sex from the History of Science

Distillations Podcast

Close up of Johannes de Sacrobosco’s astronomy textbook, De Sphaera Mundi (On the Sphere of the World).

Distilled #6: A 17th-Century (Interactive!) Astronomy Textbook

Distillations Video

Snakes and Letters

Distillations Article

Opioids’ Devastating Return

Distillations Article

The Masters of Nature

Distillations Article

Portrait of alchemist in his lab

Interview: Curator Elisabeth Berry Drago

Distillations Article

The Alchemist and His Wife, ca. 1928, by Jacques Hammerer, after 17th-century original by David Ryckaert III.

Age of Alchemy

Museum

Letter written by 17th-century scientist Lady Ranelagh

The Almost Forgotten Story of Katherine Jones, Lady Ranelagh

Distillations Podcast

Fit as a Fiddle: The Remarkable Lives of Cremonese Violins

Distillations Article

Stradivari and the Search for Brilliance

Distillations Article

The Age of Scurvy

Distillations Article

Megan Piorko

People

Amputation

Auld Medicine

Distillations Article

The Alchemist in His Study with a Woman Making Lace

The Art Detective

Distillations Article

A 16th-century engraving of an alchemist adding a scorpion to a mixture. (Wellcome Library)

The Language of Alchemy

Distillations Article

Walter Potter's Monkey Riding a Goat

Death and Taxidermy

Distillations Video

Tianna Uchacz

Tianna Uchacz

People

Marlise Rijks

Marlise Rijks

People

Agnieszka Rec

Agnieszka Rec

People

Ute Frietsch

Ute Frietsch

People

Jean-Olivier Richard

Jean-Olivier Richard

People

Haeckel illustration of hummingbirds

Information Overload

Distillations Article

Coloring Chemistry

Learn

Learn

The Ancient Chemistry Inside Your Taco

Distillations Video

Behind the Beaker

Research

Mark Waddell

People

Dane Thor Daniel

People

Hiro Hirai

Hiro Hirai

People

Isaac Newton alchemical manuscript

Isaac Newton and the American Alchemist

Distillations Article

Bruce Moran

People

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

Scientific Biographies

Learn

Esperanto postcard

Speaking in Tongues

Distillations Article

Rare Books

Collections

James R. Voelkel

People

Portrait of Robert Boyle

Robert Boyle

Historical Profile

The Whole of Nature and the Mirror of Art

Museum

Fine Art

Collections

Transmutations: Alchemy in Art

Museum

Our library collections span nearly six miles of shelves

Othmer Library

Research

Permanent Exhibition

Museum

Research fellow Roger Eardley-Pryor.

Research Activities

Research

Synthesis Book Series

Research

Collections

Collections

Liber de arte distillandi de compositis

Tryals and Tribulations

Distillations Article

17th-century scientists in the lab

Science and the Supernatural in the 17th Century

Distillations Podcast

The Alchemist in His Laboratory

Distillations Video

Mark of Pierre Viart

Of Woodcuts and Metalcuts

Distillations Article

Painting: An Alchemist’s Laboratory

Gold, Secrecy, and Prestige

Distillations Article

Recipes and Extracts on Alchemy, Medicine, Metal-Working, Cosmetics, Veterinary Science, Agriculture, Wine-Making, and Other Subjects

The Philosophers’ Stove

Distillations Article

Double Vision

Distillations Article

The Secrets of Alchemy

Distillations Article

John Mayow’s “nitro-aerial particles” in action

Carried Away

Distillations Article

Title page of Boyle’s Sceptical Chymist

Alchemists, Unite!

Distillations Article

Deborah Harkness

Facts and Fictions

Distillations Article

Novum Organum

Roads to Revolution

Distillations Article

Ripley Reviv’d (1678) by Eirenaeus Philalethes (i.e. George Starkey).

A Typographical Puzzle

Distillations Article

Galileo

Myth Busters United

Distillations Article

Tyrocinium chymicum

Liar, Liar, Lead on Fire

Distillations Article

Detail of frontispiece from The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes

London Calling

Distillations Article

Arabic astronomers

Seek Knowledge as Far as China

Distillations Article

Paracelsus Portrait

Paracelsus, Healer of the German Reformation

Distillations Article

Ibn Butlan’s Risalat da`wat al-atibba

Al-Kimiya: Notes on Arabic Alchemy

Distillations Article