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Francesco Bianchini (1662-1729). Hesperi et Phosphori nova phaenomena, sive, Observationes circa planetam Veneris. Rome: Giovanni Maria Salvioni, 1728. Purchased as the gift of Mr. & Mrs. Rudy L. Ruggles, Jr., and on the L. Colgate Harper Fund, 2010.

Andechs (Germany). Benedictine priory. Chronick dess hochberümbten Closters, vnd Gottshauses, heiligen Berg Andechs, S. Benedicten Ordens, Augspurger Bistthumbs, in Obern Bayrn gelegen. Munich: Johann Jäcklin, 1657. Purchased on the Henry S. Morgan Fund, 2007.

Aelius Donatus. Ars minor. Mainz: Johann Schöffer, ca. 1517-1518. Purchased on the Henry S. Morgan Fund, 2010.

Bartolomeo Pinelli (1781-1835). Album of thirty-seven Italian genre scenes assembled by or for Eugène de Bourbon-Busset, consisting of hand-colored etchings, mostly by Bartolomeo Pinelli, but also by Gaetano Cottafavi and Filippo Ferrari. [Rome: n.p., ca. 1809-1838]. Purchased as the gift of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Printed Books and Bindings in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., and on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2008.

Robert Simson (1687-1768). Sectionum conicarum libri V. Edinburgh: T. & W. Ruddiman, 1735. Purchased as the gift of Rudy L. Ruggles, Jr., and on the Dannie and Hettie Heineman Fund, 2009.

Die Wiener Werkstätte, 1903-1928: Modernes Kunstgewerbe und sein Weg. Edited by Mathilde Flögl. Vienna: Krystall-Verlag, 1929. Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2009.

When so many men have kept personal records over so many years, why do so many of us persist in thinking of the diary as a women’s form? In today’s guest post, Rebecca Steinitz, author of a forthcoming book on the diary in the nineteenth century, challenges that popular assumption.

How did states cope with financial crisis before the birth of modern economic thought? England turned to Sir Isaac Newton when faced with such a quandary a little over 300 years ago.

Traditional diarists make choices about what bits of life to memorialize. But what if we could save life in its entirety? In today’s post, tech luminary and innovator Gordon Bell describes his efforts to do just that.

Napoleon and Josephine were married in March, 1796, just days before he departed to take charge of the French army in Italy. In love with his new wife, Napoleon sent her passionate letters and begged her to join him. Josephine, however, preferred to continue her fashionable life in Paris, and to this end she confided to Murat, Napoleon's confidante, that she was pregnant.