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Home > Harry Potter Exhibit
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About the Exhibition
“Harry Potter’s World: Renaissance Science, Magic, and Medicine,” a traveling exhibition opening at CCSU’s Burritt Library on October 6, 2009, uses materials from the National Library of Medicine to explore Harry Potter’s magical world and its roots in Renaissance traditions.
Exhibit panels feature the works of 15th- and 16th-century thinkers, such as naturalist Konrad Gesner, alchemist Nicolas Flamel and occultist Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, and explore their understandings of natural philosophy, medicine and magic. The panels also highlight illustrations from Renaissance texts of some of the fantastic creatures and plants featured in “Harry Potter,” including basilisks, dragons, merpeople and mandrakes, and use them to explore the intersection between the novels and Renaissance thinkers, lore and practices.
The exhibit provides insight into how the study of Renaissance magic, science and medicine adds a fascinating dimension to “Harry Potter” for both children and adults. For example, alchemist Nicolas Flamel is fictionally featured in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Flamel was a real 15th-century scholar whose experiments with metals influenced the development of modern chemistry. CCSU plans to explore exhibition themes, including the development of Western science, through a series of engaging, informative and innovative programs.
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