Renaissance of the Earth

John Donne, Devotions (1624)
Reading by candlelight was a common practice, but was not without risks.One reader held the book too close to the flame and set the text on fire.
On loan from the private collection of Joseph Black.

Thomas Burnet, The Sacred Theory of the Earth (1684)
Just as he hypothesized that the earth was once covered in water, Burnet also asserted that the earth must endure a fiery conflagration that will allow it to return to its hollow, egg-like shape.
Held in the Kinney Center’s rare book collection.

Robert Boyle, New Experiments, touching the relation betwixt flame and air (1672)
Boyle uses his air pump to better understand the relationship between these two elements, discovering, for example that fire needs air to burn.
On loan from the Archives & Special Collections, Amherst College

William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1623)
It was during a performance of Henry VII in 1613 that the cannon fire called for in Act One set the thatch roof of the Globe on fire.
On loan from the Gillespie Collection.

John Swan, Speculum Mundi (1635)
This text, like Burnet’s Sacred Theory, attempts to reconcile scientific and religious understandings of the world. He explores the world’s beginnings, its impending demise, and its natural phenomenon—including the various fires in the skies such as comets, meteors, and firedrakes.
Held in the Kinney Center’s rare book collection.