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Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics
September 15, 2006 – April 1, 2007
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 Mendel’s microscope
The Abbey of St. Thomas offered Mendel access to a variety of scientific resources, including this microscope. Although Mendel did not have an advanced degree, he was no amateur. He was university-educated, widely read in the sciences, and a diligent hands-on experimenter.
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Mendel’s books
Like many scientists of his day, Mendel had diverse scientific interests. His books demonstrate the range of ideas—math, physics, astronomy, meteorology, cell studies, botany—that influenced his genius.
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 Mendel’s handwritten notes
These words, written in the back of another hybridist’s book—are the only known handwritten notes of Mendel’s thoughts leading up to his grand experiment. Since Mendel died before he was famous, few of his possessions and papers have survived.
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Oil portrait of Mendel as Abbot
This large portrait of Mendel as Abbot has hung in the Abbey of St. Thomas for more than a century. Mendel was elected Abbot of the St. Thomas friars in 1868, after which he had little time for science. Mendel may have been disheartened by the lack of reaction to his pea paper, but he knew that his discovery was important, and not long before his death in 1884, he told a scientific colleague, “My time will come.”
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