Heavens and Hells through the Ages

Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,
At certain revolutions all the damn'd
Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes,—extremes by change more fierce

                                                                       John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II

Discover the shifting meanings of Heaven and Hell as St John's College unearths treasures from across the centuries for the Cambridge Festival of Ideas. In response to the Festival's theme for 2018, 'extremes', the exhibition in the seventeenth-century Old Library includes medieval depictions of classical mythology and Judgement Day, illustrated printings of Dante's Commedia and Milton's Paradise Lost, a first-edition copy of Thomas More's Utopia, studies of atheism and purgatory, and the work of Johnian astronomers and science-fiction authors. Entry is free.