Photograph of the Month: Henry Martyn Taylor, mathematician

Henry Martyn Taylor (1842–1927) was an undergraduate at Trinity and later a Fellow. A mathematician who contributed to the study of geometry, he is also remembered for an innovation which made mathematical texts more accessible to blind people. After catching influenza at the age of 52, his sight was damaged and he eventually became completely …

Photograph of the Month: Graduate Students 1976

This month we welcome new students to Trinity and shortly they will all visit the Wren Library to sign the Admission Book. College Statutes were altered to allow the admission of women to the college in 1975. This photograph dates from 1976, the year that female graduate students first arrived. Marian Hobson was elected the …

Discovering Newton

Earlier this week we welcomed members of the Worshipful Company of Scientific Instrument Makers to the Library. Their visit was part of a symposium to mark the 350th anniversary of Newton’s argument that the Earth’s gravity influenced the moon, counter-balancing its centrifugal force. Among the items on display were personal effects which belonged to Newton …

Wittgenstein’s Letter to the Garden Committee

The papers of the eminent philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein are available via the Wren Digital Library. Outwith this archive, however, is a curious letter he addressed to the Garden Committee of the College in 1934, of incidental interest because of his studied objections to their plans for the Fellows' Garden. The area of land to the …

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 etc This late-15th/early 16th …

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, …

The Legend of St Eustace

The latest medieval manuscript to go online is B.11.5, a 13th-century French Psalter once owned by Goring Priory. It includes illustrations of the legend of the 2nd-century saint, Eustace, as follows: A Roman military officer called Placida was hunting near Tivoli and saw a vision of Christ between the antlers of a stag. Taking the …