Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (10)

L.11.33, Habitus praecipuorum populorum This German Trachtenbuch (Costume book) was printed in Nuremburg in 1577. The introduction is signed by Hans Weigel and most of the woodcuts are by Jost Amman. Costume books of this kind began to be produced in the second half of the sixteenth century. There are 219 single page woodcuts that …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (9)

O.1.31, Carmen de Algorismo and Massa Compoti This manuscript contains two booklets by the same scribe. The first is a mathematical text Carmen de Algorismo and has an explicit on f.18v. The explicit indicates the end of a unit of text and may provide information such as the title, the author, the scribe, or the …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (8)

R.10.5, Psalter Though parts have been lost, the remaining decoration in R.10.5 suggests that this was a very fine Flemish psalter. It belongs to the ‘Tweede’ group produced in Ghent from 1270 and has distinctive bracket-like borders. A line of Middle Dutch (si di en zot zi di een ries) copied by the original scribe …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (7)

B.9.7, S. Athanasii Tractatus This volume, written by Emmanuel Bobeni of Monembasia, is the manuscript the Library has owned for the longest time and was given to the college by John Christopherson, Master and Bishop of Chichester who died in 1558 . It was mentioned by Thomas James in Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis as one of two manuscripts …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (6)

R.7.31, Commonplace Book of Edward VI This book is in the hand of King Edward VI, son of King Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. Edward succeeded his father in 1547 and this book was written soon after. It is a collection of scriptural passages against idolatry which were copied into French for …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (5)

Recent additions to the Digital Library include an Italian poem printed in the sixteenth century, a musical score by C. Hubert Parry, an eighteenth-century notebook and an album of photographs from the First World War. Grylls.6.218, Germini sopra quaranta meretrice della citta di Firenze A poem in octaves, I Germini, is a burlesque take on …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (4): Prince Henry’s Copybooks

Prince Henry Frederick (1594 –1612) was the son of James VI of Scotland (also later James I of England) and Anne of Denmark. In his short lifetime, he was regarded as a young man of great promise - the ideal Renaissance prince - but he died of typhoid fever at the age of only 18. …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (3)

Recent additions to the Wren Digital Library include a volume from the Benedictine Cathedral Priory in Canterbury (Christ Church), a 15th century volume of sermons on the Gospels, a book of alchemy once owned by Dr Dee, several Greek texts and a beautifully ornamented theological text. B.3.32, Augustini et Aliorum Sermones This manuscript is written in …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (2)

The latest additions to the Wren Digital Library include a manuscript containing works by Chaucer (R.3.15), a volume given to Trinity by Jonathan Dryden (B.15.27), two manuscripts of Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection (O.7.47 and B.15.18), a volume from Christ Church Cathedral Priory (B.2.25) and a medieval encyclopedia (R.9.10). R.3.15: Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales This …

Recent Additions to the Wren Digital Library (1)

Items added to the Wren Digital Library over the past few weeks include a French translation of St Augustine's De Civitate Dei, a volume which probably belonged to Thomas Becket, an anthology containing marginal commentaries in decorative shapes and two printed plays by Shakespeare from the Capell Collection of Shakespeariana. R.17.23: Augustine, De Civitate Dei, …