Historical & Special Collections curates a major exhibit each year in the Law Library’s Caspersen Room on the fourth floor of Langdell Hall. Smaller exhibits also rotate in and out of the Caspersen Room bookcases and at the Areeda Hall entrance to the Library.
Current Exhibit
First written in 1215, the ideas of liberty and human rights contained in and derived from England’s Magna Carta have persisted for more than 800 years. They have inspired developments in law now enshrined in constitutions and treaties around the world. The survival and resonance of those ideas are reflected in the manuscripts in this exhibit. The Harvard Law School Library owns close to 30 manuscript copies of Magna Carta, 16 of which are featured in this exhibit. A high-quality, life-size reproduction of HLS MS 172 will be on display for the exhibit’s duration.
One Text, Sixteen Manuscripts: Magna Carta at the Harvard Law School Library first debuted in September 2015 to celebrate Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary. In honor of the exciting new scholarship surrounding HLS MS 172, we are pleased to bring the exhibit back for a limited time.
The exhibit is on view in the Caspersen Room, Harvard Law School Library (access with Harvard ID), weekdays from 9am to 5pm from June 5 – August 15, 2025.
The Caspersen Room will be closed June 16-18.
Explore One Text, Sixteen Manuscripts: Magna Carta at the Harvard Law School Library online.
CURIOSity
Explore both new and migrated online exhibit content via Harvard Library’s CURIOSity platform.
Highlighted Exhibits
Explore CURIOSity exhibits curated by Historical & Special Collections
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![Pulling the wooden law shield out of its case]()
Retiring the Harvard Law School Shield
Learn the history of the Harvard Law School’s first shield, from its complex and troubling origins to its retirement.
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![Grid of 21 headshots of HLS affiliates who became US Supreme Court Justices between 1882 and 2017.]()
Collections | Connections: Stories from the Harvard Law School Library
Celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Harvard Law School by exploring how the Harvard Law School Library preserves the school’s history.
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![A print of a lion and a unicorn with the text,]()
Ruhleben: A British Community in War-Time Germany
Learn about the community built at Ruhleben, Germany’s World War I civilian internment camp.
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![Three-quarter length portrait of Charles Hamilton Houston by C. Gregory Stapko after a painting by Betsy Reyneau.]()
Charles Hamilton Houston and the Harvard Law School
This exhibit explores and celebrates Houston’s connection with Harvard Law School.
Exhibit Addenda (2015-2024)
Exhibit Addenda was a website that featured companion content for Historical & Special Collections’ physical exhibits, as well as online exhibits. It debuted in January 2015 and was retired in April 2024.
Select content from the Exhibit Addenda site was migrated to CURIOSity.
Looking for Historical & Special Collections exhibit content not available on CURIOSity? You can view past versions of the Exhibit Addenda site via Archive-It (a web archiving service built at the Internet Archive). The archived Exhibit Addenda site was collected by the Harvard University Archives, as part of their collection of “A-Sites: Archived Harvard Websites.”
The Exhibit Addenda site is also searchable via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Questions
Still not finding what you are looking for? Please contact specialc@law.harvard.edu with questions.