Selling the silver: country house libraries and the history of science (original) (raw)
Related papers
New College Notes, 2023
In 1872 a set of Isaac Newton’s manuscripts was bequeathed to New College, Oxford by the Reverend Jeffrey Ekins. Although Newton scholars were well aware of this collection, its provenance is shrouded in mystery. In this article, I first investigate the contents of Newton's vast archive of manuscripts and how they were handed down after his death in 1727. Then I examine the provenance of the specific set of manuscripts (MS 361) that was bequeathed to New College, Oxford in 1872. Although this topic has been scrutinized extensively in the literature, I believe the main narrative is flawed. By collecting all the available evidence and drawing some new connections, I present an alternative narrative that avoids those flaws. Lastly, I delve into the manuscript collection and focus on the manuscript folio on which Newton's famous optical diagram appears. I discuss the provenance of that specific sketch and link it to a similar but neater sketch that appears in the library of Geneva. This allows me to get a clearer picture of the various stages at which the 'vignette' for the 1722 French translation of Newton's Opticks was conceived from sketch (New College, Oxford) to publication (1722 Opticks). I conclude by drawing the connection between the various contingent circumstances under which Newton's manuscripts have come down to us and the current state of the scholarship based on the availability of these resources.
The impact of the manuscript market on British libraries and archives
Archives & Manuscripts, 1983
This article discusses some of the difficulties faced by British libraries and record offices in participating in the long-established and flourishing market in manuscripts and personal papers. Rising prices have led to a high degree of cooperation between repositories, some questioning of traditional methods of acquisition, and a greater reliance on external sources, both public and private, for assistance with manuscript purchases. In 1976 the archivist of Winchester College resigned in protest against the proposed sale of the most famous document in his archives, the 15th century manuscript of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d' Arthur. The governors of the college, who intended to use the money to create scholarships, were unmoved by his noble gesture and proceeded to sell the manuscript to the British Library for £150,000.' In 1980 a learned society followed the Winchester example, with even more spectacular results. Faced with serious financial problems, the Royal Asiatic Society decided to part with a 14th century manuscript, the World History of Rashid al-Din, which had been bequeathed to the society in 1841. Again there were protests, again to no avail. At a Sotheby auction the manuscript was bought by a Swiss dealer for the remarkable price of £935.000. These two incidents illustrate the tendency of individuals, families and private institutions in Britain to alleviate their financial difficulties by selling manuscripts and personal papers. In recent years there have been a large number of sales, by both public auction and private treaty, in which manuscripts or personal archives have been sold for sums exceeding £50,000. The sales have often been well-publicised and have encouraged owners to adopt a much more mercenary attitude towards their family papers, including papers deposited in local record offices. The sales have also provoked a vigorous and at times acrimonious debate about the disposal and dispersal of historical records. At meetings of historians and archivists, in articles and letters in newspapers, and even in the House of Commons, arguments and counter-arguments have been advanced about the preservation of the national heritage, the needs of historians, the rights
2016
The paper exhibits the analysis of the private library of Federico Cesi (1585-1630), an important scientist in the XVIIth century, in particular involved in Botany, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei in 1603, to which also Galileo Galilei was enrolled in 1611. The library, containing about 3.000 items, which served also as library of the Accademia dei Lincei until 1630, has been dispersed. After Cesi's death, the library was sold to Cassiano Dal Pozzo almost completely, and his heirs in 1714 sold it to Pope Clemente XI Albani. Then, the collection was partly confiscated by French revolutionaries in 1798, and partly disappeared during the wreck of the ship which was conveying a large number of books, bought by the Imperial Library of Berlin, in the mid-nineteenth century. The bibliographic reconstruction of the library, containing works of Medicine, Alchemy, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, and Secreta, was based on the transcription of two manuscript inventories owned by the Accademia dei Lincei, containing rough descriptions of works and authors, and also using documents of Cesi Family's archive, kept in the Rome Archivio di Stato. The complete reconstruction in: Maria Teresa Biagetti. La biblioteca di Federico Cesi. Roma, Bulzoni Editore, 2008.
2020
Who owns the content of scientific research papers, and who has the right to circulate them? These questions are at the heart of current debates about improving access to the results of research. This working paper will use the history of academic publishing to explore the origins of our modern concerns. The <em>Philosophical Transactions</em> was founded in 1665 and is now the longest-running scientific journal in the world. This paper will follow the <em>Transactions</em> from its early days as a private venture of its editor to becoming the property of the Royal Society. It will explore the basis of the Society's claim to ownership (which had very little to do with copyright) and reveals the ways in which the Society encouraged the circulation, reprinting and reuse of material in the <em>Transactions</em> during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It will end by considering how things changed in the twentieth century, as commercial int...