* Adam Matthew Publications. Imaginative publishers of research collections.
jbanks
News  |  Orders  |  About Us
*
*   A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z  
 

RENAISSANCE MAN

THE RECONSTRUCTED LIBRARIES OF EUROPEAN SCHOLARS, 1450-1700

Series One: The Books and Manuscripts of John Dee, 1527-1608

Part 3: John Dee's Manuscripts and Annotated Books from Cambridge University Library, London

Publisher's Note

Renaissance Man: The Reconstructed Libraries of European Scholars, 1450-1700 seeks to bring together the surviving volumes of some of the finest known libraries in Renaissance England. The first series focuses on the great library of John Dee (1527-1608), who has been variously portrayed as a canny controller of a storehouse of knowledge on diverse topics; a mathematical pioneer who introduced the ideas of Euclid to the English-speaking world; the father of English exploration who taught Raleigh, Drake and Frobisher to sail; the great Elizabethan magus; a confidante to European royalty; and a man who talked to angels.


Parts 1 and 2 of this project brought together a large quantity of the surviving manuscripts once held in this magnificent library from the holdings of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Part 3, based on the holdings of Cambridge University Library, makes a start on the printed books in Dee’s Library, offering 40 volumes of printed books and one further manuscript volume.


It should be emphasised that these books are the original volumes that were once held in Dee’s library and many bear his annotations and markings. As such, in addition to offering scholars the chance to access one of the great Renaissance libraries, this publication will also provide insights into the reading practices and the way in which Dee and his contemporaries managed knowledge.

The copy of Henricus Herpf’s Theologia mystica, for example, is heavily annotated and shows signs that it has been read closely, while a work of Pomponius Gauricus contains clusters of notes on ‘Symmetria’, ‘Perspectiva’ and ‘Chimica’ including instructions for making and polishing a steel glass.

Authors represented include: Albumazar, Averroes, Roger Bacon, Georgius Benignus, Demetrius Chalcondylas, Democritus, Diogenes Laertius, Dionysius Areopagita, Pomponius Gauricus, Jacques Gohory, Wigandus Happellius, Felix Hemmerlin, Hermes, Henricus Herpf, Elias Levita, Amadeus Meigret, Albertus de Marchesiis, Augustinus Sebastianus Nuzenus, Proclus, Ps. Albertus Magnus, Ps. Avicenna, Rasis, Cornelius Duplicius Scepper, Johannes Trithemius, John of Vienna, and Johannes Voerthusius.


Subjects range from astrology and astronomy, through grammar and ethics, to philosophy and theology. There are also many scientific works.

As can be seen from the list, Dee’s library incorporated many of the major traditions of thought. The influence of the Arab world can be seen from the texts of Albumazar, the ninth-century astronomer; Averroes [Abul Walid Mohammed Ben Ahmed Ibn Roshd], the Muslim doctor, born in Cordova and famed for his works on Aristotle; and commentaries on Ptolemy. The Hebrew traditions are shown in the works of Elias Levita and a number of other Hebraica. The central influence of the Greek philosophy can be seen in the works of Diogenes Laertius, who wrote extensively on Epicurus and Democritus and Proclus.

Neoplatonism is well represented with manuscript texts of de sex rerum principiis, khalid rex et Morienus romanus and Liber gratiae by Hermes Trismegistus, and de mystica theologia by Dionysius Areopagita. A copy of De secretis naturae by Roger Bacon is also featured, and he was clearly an important influence on Dee’s own thought, as well as sharing the common fate of being accused of necromancy.


These sources will enable scholars to better understand the Renaissance world view and help to reveal the antecedents and underpinnings of Humanism.

A further six volumes that have been identified as belonging to Dee’s library cannot be included. Cambridge University Library determined that these were too fragile to be filmed.


Thanks are due to Dr Elisabeth Leedham-Green for her work on the detailed listing for this part.

Supporting Comments

“The Renaissance Man project is an exciting development which will prove of inestimable value to scholars of the Renaissance concerned with the circulation of texts and the uses made of them, with printing and publishing history, or with the intellectual background of individual scholars.”

Dr Elisabeth Leedham-Green

Fellow, Darwin College, Cambridge

“There are few seventeenth-century figures of whom it can be said that the books they had owned and written were almost immediately studied not only in England and in Western Europe but in Russia and America.  That could be said of John Dee in 1630, and the attention that he commanded then is no less widespread today.”

Julian Roberts and Andrew Watson

writing in John Dee’s Library Catalogue

(Bibliographical Society, London, 1990)

“The whole Renaissance is in this library.”

Frances Yates

Discussing Dee’s library in

Theatre of the World (London, 1969)

“Any library of more than a few hundred volumes must be considered remarkably large for the sixteenth century ...  In 1582, the University Library at Cambridge only had about 451 books and manuscripts.”

Peter French

Discussing Dee’s Library in John Dee:  The World of an Elizabethan Magus (London, 1972)

“These projects will be of immense benefit to Renaissance scholars.  To start making known through Private Libraries in Renaissance England the contents of libraries belonging to individual people and then, by complementing this series through Renaissance Man, to make available copies of the more significant books and manuscripts owned by certain well-known people, is a marvellous service.”

Laetitia Yeandle

Curator of Manuscripts,

 Folger Shakespeare Library

“When it was catalogued in 1583 Dee’s Library was Elizabethan England’s largest - and for scientific subjects at least - most valuable collection of books and manuscripts.  ...  The collection was the result of an extraordinary commitment and energy in the preservation, collection, and management of textual information and as such it is central to an appreciation of both Dee’s life and the period in which he lived.  It is not only a monument to Dee’s scholarly interests and achievements; it is one of the great monuments of English Renaissance culture.”

Dr William H Sherman

writing in  ‘A Living Library’:

The Readings and Writings of John Dee

(PhD thesis, Cambridge, 1991)

<back

 
 
 

* * *
   
* * *

* *© 2024 Adam Matthew Digital Ltd. All Rights Reserved.