The library is small by today’s standards, but think of the treasures that would have been forever lost if Cotton had not been an avid collector! The Roman emperors, by the way, are arranged chronologically, from bottom right, counter-clockwise. There is only a bit more information about the Library’s arrangement in Sharpe’s book, which is worth reading for its insights into Cotton’s interesting life and times more than for details about library shelving.Ī couple of things leap out at you from this diagram. I made a similar image based on this illustration (shown below) so that you will have a sense of how Sir Robert Cotton organized his enormously important collection. On pages 71-72, there is a description of the library and a simple line drawing (a rectangle with some text) that illustrates its arrangement. View at Google Books (no preview) or Amazon (no reviews). Fortunately, one book has a diagram of Cotton’s Library: Sir Robert Cotton, 1586-1631, by Kevin Sharpe. It’s hard to visualize Cotton’s Library, and easy to create an inaccurate picture in one’s imagination. It was the fifteenth item on the first shelf of the press under the bust of Vitellius in the Cotton Library. The Beowulf manuscript was bound in a codex (an early type of book in which manuscripts were bound into book form, rather than rolled up) which is still referenced as Cotton MS.Vitellius A.xv. ![]() The identity of items in his collection was indicated by the “press” or bookcase in which it was located.Ītop each press stood a bust of a Roman emperor. He was also a notable political figure and his career is an interesting study in the relationship between historical scholarship and national politics.Ĭotton arranged his Library for convenience, not according to modern cataloging standards. ![]() He was influential in the antiquarian movement of early Stuart England, which sought to investigate the historical origins of the British people. Cotton and his former teacher, William Camden, founded the Society of Antiquaries around 1586. His private library included the Lindisfarne Gospels, two copies of the Magna Carta, the Beowulf manuscript, and other treasures. ![]() Sir Robert Cotton (1571-1631), collected manuscripts and antiquities.
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