Winter 2018/19 – Summer 2019

Bodleian Library Friends’ Newsletter

Sheldon Tapestry Maps The Winchester Bible Oxfam Archive Exclusive Interview: Sir Roy Strong 1 Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian. Photo by John Cairns Welcome

2 From Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian From Richard Ovenden OBE, Bodley’s Librarian 3 Chairman’s Welcome | Professor Richard McCabe Dear Friends 4 Secretary’s Update | As we embark on a new academic year at the Bodleian, we are delighted Virginia Lladó-Buisán to present our new Friends’ Newsletter. It has been a momentous year for the Library. In November last year 5 Weaving our past to look at the we announced plans for a new graduate College, centering around the future: The Sheldon Tapestry Radcliffe Science Library, allowing it to be renovated to ensure we can Maps in the | support twenty-first century science. In June, the University announced Virginia Lladó-Buisán a £150 million gift from philanthropist Stephen Schwarzman to enable the university to fulfil its long-held plans to build a new Humanities 6 Conservation of The Winchester Centre, which will also have a Bodleian Library at its heart, bringing Bible | Andrew Honey together six existing humanities collections. We continued to build our collections, adding over 300,000 printed books and journals, and we 8 Seven Decades of Relief: The made major acquisitions of digital archives to ensure that the Bodleian Oxfam Archive | Chrissie Webb can support cutting-edge research in all disciplines. Our project to digitize medieval manuscripts from German speaking lands, a collaboration Interview: Sir Roy Strong with the historic Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbuttel, also got off 10 to a good start, thanks to the generosity of the Polonsky Foundation. 12 In Pursuit of a Prince: Archival The Bodleian’s exhibitions continue to attract thousands of visitors. Our Research into the Life of Albert superb exhibition Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth moved to New York’s Morgan Library in early 2019. The Director of the Morgan described it 13 A Night with the Garsington as their “most successful exhibition ever”. This autumn we look forward to Opera displaying the exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.

The Contents of the Book Go Up Tolkien was always going to be a hard act to follow, but the superb 14 Talking Maps exhibition has received a wonderful reception from to Heaven: Bodleian Fragments visitors. The exhibition showcases the best of the Bodleian’s unparalleled from the Cairo Genizah collection of more than 1.5 million ancient, pre-modern and contemporary maps from a range of cultures. Highlights include the 15 Annual Lecture 2019: Portraits of Gough Map of Great Britain, the Selden Map of China, and fictional the Virgin Queen Revisited maps by CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. 16 Recent Acquisitions Last year, over 847,000 members of the public visited our exhibitions, attended lectures or took part in family and educational events 17 Friends of the Bodleian Annual organised by our wonderful Education Officer Rosie Sharkey, whose Report work is funded by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. Finally, this year’s Bodley Medal lecture hosted by the Literary Festival was delivered Support the Bodleian by Nobel Prize winner Sir Kazuo Ishiguro. We are thrilled that he has 18 joined our illustrious cohort of Bodley medallists. We continue to be touched by the generosity of the Friends, providing us with much needed income to support the Bodleian’s work, evidence Cover Image: Sheldon Tapestry Map of Gloucestershire of which you will read about in abundance in this Newsletter. Thank you for your ongoing support of the Bodleian and all that it enables.

2 Welcome

Professor Richard McCabe, FBA, Chairman of the Advisory Council “We are grateful to all our of the Friends of the Bodleian members for their continued support and look forward to Chairman’s Welcome sharing their company at many Professor Richard McCabe future events.”

ince our last Newsletter, the Friends of the Bodleian have Painting was also the subject of the Oxford Sorolla Day Scontinued to enjoy an exciting programme of events which attracted experts from across Europe to discuss designed to explore and celebrate the Library’s holdings the work of Spain’s finest Impressionist and ‘Master of in all their rich diversity. It began in May with a subject Light’. The event marks the first collaboration between dear to Bodley’s heart when Judith Olszowy-Schlanger the Bodleian Libraries and the National Gallery and was introduced the fragments we hold from the Cairo Genizah, further facilitated by St Cross College and the Spanish precious Hebrew manuscripts dating from the tenth to Sub-faculty in a remarkable instance of cross-disciplinary the thirteenth centuries and recovered in the nineteenth and institutional co-operation. from the synagogue of Ben Ezra in Fustat where they had been preserved, despite their obsolescence, because of the But, then, co-operation is the name of the game. In his perceived sanctity of the word – a practice with unforeseen Autobiography Bodley admitted that he could never have benefits for modern conservators. realised his plans for the Library ‘without very great store of honourable friends to further the designe’. The same The following month, by courtesy of Bodley’s Librarian, remains true today. The aim of the Friends is to further the Friends were invited to the opening of the Talking Bodley’s design in perpetuity through the creation of a Maps exhibition at which were displayed some of the most community of people who value the institution as much as precious items from our holdings from Al-Idrisi’s twelfth- his contemporaries valued its founder. We are grateful to all century world map, to cartographically inspired works by our members for their continued support and look forward Grayson Perry. For those interested in pursuing the subject to sharing their company at many future events. further, Nick Millea, Bodleian Map Librarian, will deliver a talk on the exhibition on 23 September.

The highlight of Trinity Term was undoubtedly the Annual Lecture delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre on 27 June by the renowned art historian, Sir Roy Strong. Provocatively entitled ‘Portraits of the Virgin Queen Revisited, or why Professor Richard McCabe, FBA the Bodleian portrait is not her’, the lecture explored the nature and intent of Elizabethan portraiture, emphasising Chairman of the Advisory Council of the the complex relationship between the politics of patronage Friends of the Bodleian and the carefully controlled images it produced. While it is sad to learn that the Bodleian portrait ‘is not her’, it is hoped that some Friend may yet discover who it is and why she hangs here. All suggestions will be gratefully received.

3 Welcome Virginia Lladó-Buisan, Friends of the Bodleian Secretary Care. and Head of Conservation Collection Photo by John Cairns

Secretary’s Update Virginia Lladó-Buisán

s the Secretary of the Friends of the Bodleian, one Another exciting event will be Emeritus Professor of Aof my key roles is to bring new ideas for our Friend’s Physics (Oxford University) Frank Close’s lecture on 21 events programme. So I have been working steadily, January. Professor Close used the Bodleian’s collections to alongside my Bodleian colleagues and the FOB Advisory write his latest book, Trinity, where he tells the story of the Council, to put together yet another exciting lunchtime atomic bomb’s metaphorical father, Rudolf Peierls (Prof lectures programme for the academic year 2019-2020, which Close’s one time mentor in Oxford); his intellectual son, we hope is as successful and well received as last year’s. the atomic spy Klaus Fuchs; and the ghosts of the security services in Britain, the USA and USSR. Again, this lecture Today, I am delighted to share part of it with you: our will be supported by the original letters and photographic programme started “in style” with the Bodleian’s Map materials used to write this book. Librarian Nick Millea’s lunchtime lecture on 23 September focussing on the making of our current exhibition, Talking And of course, we have confirmation from other wonderful Maps. Nick not only discussed his work behind the scenes speakers for the rest of the year, which you will hear about of this wonderful display, but also showed in situ a number very soon! of collection items to illustrate his talk. Virginia Lladó-Buisán On 6 November, Graham Philip Jefcoate will give us an Friends of the Bodleian Secretary and insight in the life and work of John Henry Bohte (1784- Head of Conservation and Collection Care 1824). Jefcoate’s forthcoming biography of Bohte, An Ocean of Literature, is a study of Anglo-German exchange and the book trade in the early nineteenth century. In writing it, he has used a range of materials from the Bodleian and other Oxford collections, some of which will be presented during his lecture.

4 DiscoverDiscover

Weaving our past to look at the future: The Sheldon Tapestry Maps in the Bodleian Libraries Virginia Lladó-Buisán

Following the successful display of the Worcestershire these somewhat mysterious tapestries: Dr. Hilary L. Turner Tapestry Map in the , it was time to give (Independent Scholar), Dr. Nobuko Shibayama (The this weaving masterpiece a rest (particularly from light Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), Dr. Lore Troalen exposure), but not without sharing yet another wonderful (National Museums of Scotland), and Bettina Sacher (UCL piece in this series, the Oxfordshire Tapestry Map. Institute for Sustainable Heritage) have produced extremely interesting new content, particularly on the identification Commissioned by Ralph Sheldon for his home at Weston, of the dyes used to make the silk and wool yarn used for the Warwickshire, the tapestries form a unique representation tapestries. My project partner Nick Millea (Bodleian Map of the landscape at a period when modern cartography Librarian) will also soon share the results of this research and was in its infancy. Their content was largely derived conservation work, jointly with other cartographic scholars, from the county maps of Christopher Saxton, surveyed at a symposium on 22 October at the Weston Library, and published in the 1570s, but this set of four have no bookable via the Bodleian’s website. forebears in English mapmaking tradition. Through years of work, our project grew in complexity and The Warwickshire map, held by Warwickshire Museum, our enthusiasm became contagious. We lived many exciting is the only one of the four to survive completely intact, moments such as the wet cleaning of the Worcestershire with Oxfordshire and Worcestershire having lost significant Tapestry at De Wit, Mechelen (Belgium), or its installation in portions of their content, and Gloucestershire (purchased by Blackwell Hall on the morning of the Weston public opening. the Bodleian with the support of the Friends of the Bodleian) We have shared our work along the way, giving special broken into many parts, not all of which have survived. lectures, daily talks, and national newspaper interviews. Our project was also one of five finalists at the UK’s Museum and When I started managing this project in 2012, our main Heritage Awards 2016. But the best part is that we have loved goal was to conserve the tapestries to a high standard, but every step, along with all our visitors who admire the vibrant we also hoped to give the public access to these unique colours of the tapestry while they find or recognise place works that had been in storage for over a century. We can names as Shakespeare would have known them. now say that this has been achieved. I am proud and thankful for the enormous effort that Many scholars and scientists generously contributed their went into fundraising, conservation & preservation, public knowledge and expertise to help us better understand engagement, storage, display and transit. Bodleian and National Trust colleagues steadily worked to complete the project, “one stitch at the time”, like expert tapestry weavers would do. We will always be thankful to the generous donors that made the project possible: The JP Getty Jnr Charitable Trust, The Clothworkers Company, The Drapers’ Company, Lady Marriner, and a number of private donors.

Virginia Lladó-Buisán Friends of the Bodleian Secretary and Head of Conservation and Collection Care

Top: Terri Dewhurst, Textile Conservator, plotting the positions of the tapestry fragments on the old linen backing and then cutting away the linen backing prior to washing. Credit: National Trust/Textile Conservation Studio Left: Bodleian Sheldon Tapestry of Oxford (detail). Credit: Bodleian Libraries, 5 Discover

Conservation

long running conservation project to conserve Aand rebind the Winchester Bible at the Bodleian of The Libraries has recently been completed by book conservator Andrew Honey. The Winchester Bible was made at and for Winchester Cathedral in the later twelfth century and has remained at the Cathedral Winchester for over 900 years. It is the largest of the surviving giant English twelfth-century lectern bibles and has been described by Dr Christopher de Hamel as “a candidate for the greatest work of art produced in Bible England”.

Work to conserve, digitise and then rebind each of the Andrew Honey Bibles four volumes was begun in 2014 by Dr Christopher Clarkson, the pre-eminent British book conservator. Friends will remember Chris as Bodley’s first Conservation Officer from 1978–1989, when he did so much to develop the Conservation section, and he remained a consultant to the Library after he left to establish a training course for book conservators at West Dean College.

6 Discover

The Bodleian was asked by Winchester to continue the conservation work at the end of 2015. It is unusual for the Bodleian to undertake work for other libraries, but the importance of the manuscript coupled with the challenges that it presented, and our expertise in manuscript conservation made a compelling case. We have now completed the complex conservation work to stabilise the painted and gilded miniatures, repair the parchment leaves, and rebind the volumes. We reviewed each volume on completion prompting us to refine and develop our techniques.

The Winchester Bible has been temporarily reunited at the Bodleian with other manuscripts from Winchester and this

Consolidation of lifting paint flakes with a dilute solution of Isinglass (Winchester Cathedral, MS. 17, Volume II.i, MS. 17, with a dilute solution of Isinglass Cathedral, (Winchester flakes Consolidation of lifting paint Cathedral. Winchester Chapter, by permission of The Image reproduced fol. 246r). has allowed opportunities for research. Most notably with the other twelfth-century Winchester lectern Bible (MSS. Auct. E. inf. e. 1-2), known as the Auct. Bible. Working closely with Winchester we invited a group of scholars to compare the manuscripts: from their parchment and ‘A candidate for gilding, to the corrections found in both manuscripts and evidence for public reading, to analysis of the pigments used by the illuminators. the greatest work of art To mark the end of this project and to provide a lasting digital legacy we have now completely digitised the Auct. Bible with the kind support of the Greg and Jan produced in England’ Winchester Family Foundation, and the images will be freely available on Digital Bodleian. All four volumes of the Winchester Bible have returned to Winchester Cathedral and are now on display in their new Kings and Scribes: the Birth of a Nation exhibition.

Andrew Honey Book Conservator, research and teaching, Conservation and Collection Care

Sewing a secondary endband with indigo-dyed and natural threads (Winchester Cathedral, MS. 17, Volume MS. 17, Volume (Winchester Cathedral, threads and natural with indigo-dyed Sewing a secondary endband Cathedral. Winchester Chapter, by permission of The Image reproduced II.ii). 7 Discover Seven Decades of Relief: The Oxfam Archive

Chrissie Webb

fter six years, the Bodleian’s ambitious project to Acatalogue the Oxfam archive and make it more 12 catalogues accessible to researchers has come to a successful end. With generous funding from the Wellcome Trust over that period, the Bodleian has been able to release 10,000 boxes of files twelve catalogues, now available on the Library’s website. 7 decades of history Chrissie Webb, Bodleian project archivist, and Antonia White, Oxfam’s archivist, along with a team of archives assistants, volunteers and interns, sorted, appraised and described the contents of nearly 10,000 boxes of files, reports, committee minutes, photographs and other materials.

The catalogues detail the organization’s historic archive, spanning seventy years from its origins in 1942, when it was founded as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, to 2012, including records of governance, corporate management, appeals and fundraising, programme policy and management, internal and external communications, campaigns, and trading. Between them, these files illustrate the way in which Oxfam grew from its beginnings to become a leading, internationally recognised non- governmental organization.

The archive is an extremely rich resource for researchers, offering a vast breadth and depth of material for the study of humanitarianism and advocacy on behalf of poor people. An unbroken series of minutes of the governing body, beginning with those noted in an exercise book at the first meeting on 5 October 1942 in the Old Library of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, and correspondence of the Director with staff, governments and other agencies from 1950, reveal the decision-making processes and management of the organization.

Poster, 1964

8 Discover

The archive also contains 19,000 files relating to grants made by Oxfam to agencies and partners for development initiatives and in response to humanitarian emergencies around the world since 1953. These files not only illustrate core activity, but also provide insight into issues addressed, outcomes and impact in areas ranging from income generation to water and sanitation provision and primary health care. Flag for 'European Relief' street collection, 1946 Relief' street for 'European Flag

Campaigns and fundraising materials, including publicity leaflets, periodicals, policy and strategy documents and press advertisements trace the approaches taken to enthuse and recruit supporters and to adapt to changing environments over the decades. All of these and more have been well used by researchers so far and interest continues to grow.

The archive can be consulted on production of a valid reader's card in the Weston Library Reading Rooms. Images of the collection of over 700 posters can be viewed on Digital Bodleian (https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/).

Chrissie Webb Bodleian Project Archivist Above: Campaigns leaflet, 1983 Below: Help to Greece Week: Appeals leaflet, 1952

9 Meet

Interview

Sir Roy Strong

Sir Roy Strong rriving at the Sheldonian Theatre Aahead of his talk for the Friends of the is always on the move. “Oxford is a monument to it. Bodleian Annual Lecture on 27 June, Sir Scholarship moves on and new things are discovered. A Roy Strong spoke to the Bodleian Friends’ very great deal had been discovered, but nobody seems to Newsletter about the lecture, his new book write any more books for what I call an educated reader. and his love of Elizabethan portraiture. A They just write these endless articles. Who on earth is going writer, art historian, and museum curator, to read them? What I tried to do was synthesise all of that, Strong was formerly director of both the throw my own observations coming half a century on and National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria put together a book which you can read cover to cover. and Albert Museum in London. And I flatter myself, I can write and capture the reader and make them think ‘isn’t that extraordinary?’”

Starting with his lecture, what does Sir Roy hope the Strong credits the origins of the book to “E.H. Gombrich, audience will take away? “The marvellous architecture the great art historian” who asked him fifty years ago to begin with! And they might ponder, I suppose, why what he was working on. “Well, I want to know how somebody who is just about to be eighty-four should return Elizabethans looked at the surface of a picture,” Strong told to a subject he first worked on sixty years ago”. him, to which Gombrich replied: “That is a very interesting idea!” “I’ve always been fascinated by the Elizabethan age,” he explains. “The book [The Elizabethan Image(Yale University “Well, half a century on I now know, having fiddled around Press, 2019)] is my farewell to the Virgin Queen, for what with it for some time. And I think that is roughly the that’s worth, and is dedicated to the immortal memory theme of the book: to teach people how to look at those of Elizabeth I. And as things are in this country at the pictures which I’d fallen in love with such a long time ago moment I think everything came with Elizabeth I and which still absolutely fascinate me. I would have thought everything is about to go with Elizabeth II”. 99% of the population have never seen a renaissance picture. In a way it’s a continuation of medieval England On his decision to write a new book on Elizabethan and medieval optics, but using the new imagery coming out portraiture, Strong remarks that intellectual enquiry of humanism and rediscovery of the classics.”

10 Meet

His autobiography, Self-Portrait as a Young Man, is published by Bodleian Library Publishing, and Strong is quick to say how much he enjoyed writing it. “I’m very proud of that book. It was very kind of the Bodleian to publish it. I’m now on book forty-five and I think that is one of the best and most honest books I’ve ever written. I felt it was something that needed to be said. It shows how even after the post-war education act a young boy from a terraced house in North London with a father who only had three books which he never read, couldn’t care whether I could read or write, but with a mother who knew one thing from her father which was to do everything she could to see her children be educated and that you can absolutely go to the summit from that. Although I never dreamed I’d be lecturing in the Sheldonian Theatre. The heights of glamour are really hitting me today!”

“Nobody seems to write any more books for what I call an educated reader. They just write these endless articles. Who on earth is going to read them?”

Sir Roy’s archive is also held by the Bodleian. “Well that came about through the gentleman to my right” Strong explains, indicating Chris Fletcher, Bodleian Keeper of Special Collections. The grandfather of Strong’s wife was Sir Charles Oman, Professor of Modern History at Oxford and fellow of All Souls. “A lot of her childhood was passed in Frewin Hall. So she had rather a grand upbringing in a way!”

Through his wife, Strong inherited “the papers passed to Juliet Caren Oman, Lady Joan Trevelyan, who was also first trustee of the National Collection and is now being rediscovered as a woman writer of the 20s and 30s and 40s. Chris Fletcher came to see me and all the papers and said ‘yours is the largest private archive of somebody post-1945 that I’ve ever clapped eyes on’. I didn’t really think anything of it at all and he may regret this terrible thing of getting my papers! I just let him have everything. The Bodleian has everything down to the death of my wife in 2003 and will have the rest for what they’re worth. Some of them could be quite interesting.” Above: Roy Strong, Self-Portrait as a Young Man (Bodleian Library Publishing, 2013), £25. What does he expect future historians will make of it? “I A limited number of signed copies of this book are available for members of the Friends of the Bodleian. haven’t a clue! I hope they will be amused, enchanted, and Please contact [email protected] to obtain your copy. might feel that I attempted to make some contribution to Below: Roy Strong, The Elizabethan Image: An Introduction to English Portraiture the second half of the twentieth century, in a modest way (Yale University Press, 2019), £35 within my domain.” 11 Explore In Pursuit of a Prince: Archival Research into the Life of Albert

Not another bloody book about Prince Albert!” “This was the response of the Duke of Edinburgh when AN Wilson, writer and historian, revealed his plans to write a new biography of Queen Victoria’s husband. “He had a very short life, so you can write a very short book,” the Duke continued.

If Wilson’s talk for the Friends of the Bodleian, “In Pursuit of a Prince: Archival Research into the Life of Albert” in March 2019 is anything to go by, there is still a lot to be Above: AN Wilson signs books for attendees at his lecture for the Friends of the Bodleian said about a short but vigorous life.

Speaking to a packed Weston Library Lecture Theatre, his wife, and his constant search for father figures. “Albert was Wilson guided the Friends of the Bodleian through the always looking around for father substitutes,” he explains, “and huge range of material (much of it held in the Weston Robert Peel was his greatest father substitute”. itself) that went into his new book, Prince Albert: The Man Who Saved the Monarchy (Harper, 2019). From the Prince’s It is Albert’s impact on the monarchy as an institution, family life to his correspondence and the impact of the however, that defines the talk and the book. The story 1851 Great Exhibition, Wilson conveyed Albert’s incredible of Albert is one of how he and Prime Minister Peel work. “I now realise that he is an incomparably great successfully linked the monarchy to the powers of progress. person”, he reflected mid-way through his lecture. Through the Great Exhibition, the spectacular industrial and cultural showcase in Hyde Park in 1851, Albert ensured That greatness, he explained, was felt by universities as that the British monarchy did not become terminally much as by other institutions. Albert’s own education linked to the forces of reaction as did so many of Victoria’s inspired him to push for reforms at the University of counterparts elsewhere in Europe. Cambridge, to which he gave his detailed advice. That in turn inspired Oxford, Durham and Trinity College Dublin Following the lecture, Wilson received a deserved ovation to follow suit. and a queue for signed copies of The Man Who Saved the Monarchy. As one Friend put it, “I always think with AN The Friends heard also about Albert’s insecurities: his Wilson that you get the tip of the iceberg and that there is obsession with his baldness, his difficult relationship with so much more that one would like to know.”

“I now realise that he is an incomparably great person”

12 Left: AN Wilson speaks in the Weston Library Lecture Theatre Explore A Night with the Garsington Opera

In February 2019 the Friends of the Bodleian were treated When asked, Boyd rejects the ‘Country House Opera’ label, to a special and unique evening with the Garsington because it implies amateurism. It’s easy to see why. Robert Opera in the Divinity School and . The Forrest’s accomplished rendition of the ‘Prologue’ from performance by the Oxfordshire-based opera company, Benjamin Britten’s twentieth-century chamber opera, The exclusively for the Friends, brought artistic quality and a Turn of the Screw, is a refined and fitting opening that has historic venue together for a truly special experience. the audience enchanted.

A wine reception in the Divinity School provided a warm Further conversation from Boyd and Maddocks about the welcome, before the guests moved through to Convocation Opera’s summer programme follow before Garsington’s house. Seats taken, Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, Jennifer France gives a show-stopping performance of introduced music critic Fiona Maddocks of the Observer ‘Ah who can tell what one is feeling?' from Fantasio by and Douglas Boyd, the Garsington Opera’s artistic director. Jacques Offenbach. The 1872 opéra comique, closely based on the 1834 play of the same name, found little success in In their conversation, Maddocks and Boyd gave the Offenbach's lifetime, but was revived in the 1930s and has audience a rare insight into the work of an extraordinary been performed much more frequently in the 2000s. In her opera festival. Founded in 1989, the Garsington Opera own interpretation, France plays the audience wonderfully, presents a programme of four operas over a busy seven- bringing smiles and laughter all round with a charming week summer period in a setting of extraordinary natural performance. beauty, the spectacular Opera Pavilion at the Wormsley Estate in the Chiltern Hills. As the audience files out at the end of the evening, there is only one question: When can we do it again?

Below: Attendees enjoy a glass of wine ahead of the Garsington Opera’s performance in Convocation house

13 Explore

n Friday 24 May, the Friends had the Oopportunity to listen to Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger speak about the Cairo Geniza fragments in the Bodleian collection. Professor Olszowy-Schlanger, one of the foremost experts on the Cairo Geniza collection is a Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Director of the Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. She revealed the incredible riches in this section of the Bodleian Judaica Collection.

A Geniza (plural: Genizot) was a repository for sacred scrolls and codices which, because they contained the name of God, were considered too holy to be thrown away. Eventually all sorts of material written in Hebrew letters came to be stored in the Genizot usually attached to synagogues throughout the Jewish world. In most cases

these Genizot vanished, as did many of the manuscripts 62). e. 1896 (Shelfmark: MS. Heb. Sayce, Prof. by the Rev. Genizah, acquired Cairo or Wisdom of Ben Sira, Ecclesiasticus produced by Jewish communities, subject to the same historical upheavals as their producers. The Contents of the Book Go Up to Heaven: Bodleian Fragments from the Cairo Genizah Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger Professor

Fortunately, the Geniza of the Ben Ezra Synagogue of The Bodleian fragments, although smaller in number, Fustat (Old Cairo) survived, and it contained hundreds were carefully selected by Neubauer. The collection thus of thousands of fragments that combine to give an contains textual jewels, such as a fragment of the lost unparalleled view of medieval Jewish life in the Near Hebrew original of the biblical Wisdom of Ben Sira, or East. The fragments range from abstruse theological, an autograph fragment of Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah. philosophical, medical and legal treatises to mundane Maimonides was a rabbi in Fostat, at the same time serving letters and receipts. They show the vibrant commercial and as personal physician to Saladin. intellectual life of a community that had direct contacts from Spain to India, spanning the Mediterranean, the In 2014 the Bodleian, in a pioneering partnership with Black and Red Seas and the Indian Ocean. the University of Cambridge, acquired over 1,700 Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza. In the nineteenth century fragments from the Geniza Originally bought by Lewis and Gibson in 1896, the started to appear in the West. Eventually scholars from Lewis-Gibson Collection was saved for scholarship and its Cambridge – Solomon Schechter – and Oxford – Adolf importance now stands higher than ever. Nevertheless, the Neubauer–, vied to acquire the collection. It now resides Library’s work is not done, and there remains an urgent mostly in European and American Collections, foremost need to rehouse the original part of the collection, which among them Cambridge University and the Jewish has been kept in guard-books since the beginning of the Theological Seminary (New York). twentieth century.

César Merchán-Hamann, PhD Hebrew and Judaica Curator, Bodleian Libraries and Fellow Librarian, Leopold Muller Memorial Library 14 Explore Annual Lecture 2019 Portraits of the Virgin Queen Revisited or Why the Bodleian Portrait is Not Her

he 2019 Friends of the Bodleian Annual Lecture Tsaw 150 members of the Friends gather in the Sheldonian Theatre to hear Sir Roy Strong deliver a delightful talk entitled ‘Portraits of the Virgin Queen Revisited or why the Bodleian portrait is not her’.

Professor Richard McCabe, Friends Chairman, welcomed the former director of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum as a man who ‘deserves an introduction more than he needs one’. ‘The world can boast Sir Roy explains, you couldn’t paint these dresses and the many self-made men’ Professor McCabe observed, ‘but self- jewels upon them in this level of detail without having the made renaissance men?’ garment in front of you, even without the Queen herself.

Taking to the stage, Sir Roy led the audience through Next, he moves to the Bodleian’s portrait. When Richard the various depictions of Elizabeth I. Starting with the Henry Beaumont (1748–1810) donated it to the Library Ditchley Portrait, the largest and most famous, the Queen in 1802 he identified Elizabeth as the subject but, Strong stands not in the real world but in ‘cosmic space’, standing explains, ‘it isn’t her’. It probably owes its existence to on a map of England with her feet, appropriately, firmly the workshop of Robert Peake (c. 1551–1619), it contains placed on Oxfordshire. a typical 1590s headdress, and it is no doubt inspired by portraits of Elizabeth, but Elizabeth it is not. ‘Unknown woman by unknown artist’ is as much as we can say for certain. But behind each portrait was a different artist and, crucially, a different commissioner. Elizabeth’s age, Why, Strong asks, have people become obsessed with demeanour and surroundings change with each iteration portraits of Elizabeth? The fascination starts with Freeman and not necessarily as part of a natural progression. Portraits O’Donoghue’s A Descriptive and Classified Catalogue of could be multiplied and Portraits of Queen Elizabeth (1894) and bigger books with distributed, but not always more pictures and ‘bigger ruffs’ followed from there. Many with official sanction. portraits didn’t come to light until the 1930s. Indeed, Sir Roy explains, many would have been entirely unknown in And what of the dresses? Elizabethan England. Scholarly understanding of Elizabethan portraiture What they provide is a rich collection of portraits that has developed markedly Strong navigates with ease. Through the ‘Phoenix’ and in recent years and, ‘Pelican’ portraits, we see the dynasty and self-sacrifice of the Queen. From 1579, in response to the Queen’s proposed marriage to the Duke of Anjou, we see the first overt depictions of Elizabeth as the ‘Virgin Queen’. Those of an imperial bent were wont to include globes in their commissions, topped with crowns and fleets of ships. We must, Strong insists, ‘reverse the academic tendency to think [portraits] had a life beyond their patron’.

Proposing a vote of thanks to the speaker, Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian, observed that if Elizabeth liked to surround herself with ‘well-dressed, handsome men’, Sir Roy Strong would have done very well indeed. 15 Support Recent Acquisitions

Giacomo Certani, La Susanna. Poema. (Bologna: Clemente Ferroni, 1634)

With the support of the Friends, the Bodleian was recently able to purchase the first and only edition of a heroic poem by the Bolognese theologian and philosopher Giacomo Certani. This version of the Biblical tale of Susanna, while modelled on other major epics in ottava rima, offers an unusual example of a heroic poem with a female hero.

The Library already holds works by Certani: his lives of Saints Bridget (1677) and Patrick (1686), as well as eighteenth-century German translations of these; and an account of a festival of the Virgin (1675). La Susanna complements these holdings, as well as bringing greater depth to our understanding of his work.

The Bodleian’s copy is in seventeenth-century vellum, with a contemporary manuscript correction, but no other signs of previous ownership. The book is very rare. Only three copies are recorded, none of which is in the UK. The Library is very grateful to the Friends

for making the purchase possible. 1634) (Bologna: Clemente Ferroni, Giacomo Certani, La Susanna. Poema.

La filosofia per le dame. (Venice: Benedetto Milocco, 1777) The Bodleian and the Friends are very pleased to announce the acquisition of this anonymous work, which aims to equip women with a general grounding in various branches of philosophy. Presented as thirty-six evening conversations, it treats metaphysics from Plato, Socrates and Epicurus to Hobbes, Spinoza and Descartes, then general and particular physics (including optics, astronomy, chemistry, and biology), with theories, experiments and observations by Galileo, Pascal, and Newton. The author laments the lack of education available to women, and dedicates the work to Polissena di Giulio Contarini Da Mula, patron of the arts.

All three volumes are bound in contemporary carta rustica, but with no signs of previous ownership beyond a shelfmark on the spine. This edition, an excellent addition to the Library’s holdings on female education, is the first and only edition, of which only two other copies are recorded, with neither in the UK.

1616 La filosofia per le dame. (Venice: Benedetto Milocco, 1777) Benedetto Milocco, (Venice: La filosofia per le dame. Support Friends of the Bodleian Annual Report

In the last year, the Friends of the Bodleian have made it possible to buy and renew memberships online and by direct debit for the first time. Renewing by direct debit means that your membership is kept up to date securely and automatically, and significantly reduces the administrative burden on Bodleian staff. To switch, contact the Friends office today on [email protected] or 01865 277234.

In the coming year, the Friends will continue to offer a range of events, including talks, tours and exhibition openings, plus exclusive videos accessible online and much more. The new Bodleian Patrons scheme will also launch in the autumn, providing supporters with unique access and exclusive benefits. For more information and to join the Patrons, please contact [email protected].

Advisory Council (2018–19) Events held

Chairman Professor R. A. McCabe Catherine McIlwaine, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth private lecture and viewing, 22 Oct 2018 Council Mr Jonathan Anelay Tour of Bodleian's conservation workshop, 14 Nov 2018 Ms Kate Arnold-Foster Nadine Akkerman, Invisible agents - women and espionage in 17th century Britain, 29 Nov 2018 Professor John Barnard Virginia M. Llado-Buisan, The conservation of Japanese collections at Bodleian Libraries, 15 Jan 2019 Professor Toby Barnard Dr Barbara Eichner, Spoils of the secularization: Monastic music sources in the Bodleian Library, 14 Dr Gillian Evison Feb 2019 Dr Christopher Fletcher Babel: Adventures in Translation, Exhibition Opening and Private View, 14 Feb 2019 Dr Helen Forde Garsington Opera Special Performance, 28 Feb 2019 Professor Richard Jenkyns AN Wilson, In Pursuit of a Prince: Archival research into the life of Albert, 25 Mar 2019 Mr Giles Mandelbrote Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, The contents of the book go up to heaven: Bodleian fragments from the Professor Kathryn Sutherland Cairo Genizah, 24 May 2018 Mr Sir Roy Strong, Portraits of the Virgin Queen Revisited or why the Bodleian portrait is not her, Annual Professor Dame Marina Warner Lecture, 27 Jun 2019 Professor Henry Woudhuysen Oxford Sorolla Day, 1 Jul 2019 Ms Sarah Wheale Talking Maps exhibition opening, 4 July 2019 Ms Virginia Llado-Buisan (ex officio) Mr Richard Ovenden OBE (ex officio) Dr Richard Parfitt (ex officio) Acquisitions

Total Members (at 31 July 2019): 1342 An Address to Mothers (1784) French manuscript volume: a mother’s instructions to her daughter (Paris, 1771) Total Donations Received (1 Aug La filosofia per le dame. (Venice: Benedetto Milocco, 1777) 2018–31 July 2019, excludes membership Library catalogue of John Locke’s Library subscriptions): £24,568 Voltaire’s second presentation copy to Queen Caroline Giacomo Certani, La Susanna. Poema. (Bologna: Clemente Ferroni, 1634) Aelius Donatus, De octo orationis partibus libri octo (1517) Mrs Edgeworth, The Wife; or, A Model for Women. A tale (London, 1810) Edmund Johnson, An inquiry into the musical notation of the blind (London, 1855) Gaylord Schanilec and Clark Garry, Mayflies of the Driftless region (Stockholm, WI, 2005) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus (1983)

The Friends of the Bodleian would like to express their sincere gratitude to all those who made a donation in the course of the last year. For more information about making a donation to the Friends, please visit www.campaign.ox.ac. uk/bodleian-libraries or call 01865 277234. Photo by John Cairns

17 Support the Bodleian

or almost a century, the Friends of the Bodleian Fhave supported the Bodleian’s work to expand the Leave a gift to the Bodleian in your Will intellectual boundaries of scholarship and secure the heritage of our libraries for future generations. If you In the early seventeenth century, the Library’s Founder, are considering making a gift through the Friends, , left his entire estate as a bequest to secure the future of the Library he had built. please do consider the opportunities below, which reflect our current priorities. Legacy gifts continue to be of vital importance to the Bodleian today and in recent years have supported The Friends of the Bodleian: Gifts will be allocated to the many key areas of the Library’s activity. For example, Friends of the Bodleian acquisitions fund, which enriches providing essential endowment funds for the the Libraries’ collections by providing an income for the acquisition and curation of literary manuscripts and purchase of manuscripts and printed books. enabling our Conservation team to preserve thousands of rare and fragile books and manuscripts, enabling us The Bodleian Libraries – Greatest Needs: Gifts will be to share them with scholars, students, and the public. allocated to the Libraries area of greatest need. If you would like more information on remembering The Bodleian Libraries’ Conservation Programme: the Friends of the Bodleian in your Will, the Library All contributions will go towards helping the Library Development Office would be delighted to help. If to acquire special materials and contemporary study you have already included the Library in your estate resources for the benefit of the students and researchers planning do let us know so that we can invite you to who depend on us. be a member of Bodley’s Circle, a group established in 2009 as a way to thank supporters of the Bodleian To find out more about giving to the Friends of the Libraries who plan to leave a gift in their will. Bodleian and the Bodleian Libraries, please contact Richard Parfitt, Membership Officer, on 01865 277 234 or For more information, please contact Richard [email protected]. Parfitt, Membership Officer, on 01865 277 234 or [email protected].

18 Bodleian Library Publishing Bodleian Library Publishing produces beautiful and authoritative books which Buy online help to bring the riches of Oxford’s libraries to readers around the world. https://bodleianshop.co.uk/ Friends of the Bodleian can enjoy a members-only 10% discount when purchasing titles from collections/bodleian-publishing Bodleian Library Publishing in the Library’s gift shops, via the Library website (code: FOB) or direct from the publications catalogue (code: BL001). All of our profits help support the Follow Bodleian Publishing Library’s work in curating, conserving and collecting its rich archives and helping to maintain on Twitter @BodPublishing the Bodleian’s position as one of the pre-eminent libraries in the world.

Talking Maps Novel Houses: Twenty Famous Jerry Brotton & Nick Millea Fictional Dwellings Accompanying the exhibition Christina Hardyment at the Bodleian Library. 9781851244805 9781851245154 HB £25 | Publication October HB £35 | Publication July

Fifty Maps and the Stories they Tell July to October 2019 July to October Jerry Brotton & Nick Millea 9781851245239 PB with flaps £12 |Publication July A Museum Miscellany Claire Cock-Starkey 9781851245116 Why North is Up: Map Conventions HB £9.99 | Publication October NEW TITLES and Where They Came From Mick Ashworth 9781851245192 HB £20 | Publication August

Drink Map of Oxford Introduced by Stuart Ackland Oxford Botanic Garden: A Guide 9781851245352 Simon Hiscock & Chris Thorogood Map £10 | Publication October 9781851245208 PB £8 | Publication August

Curious Creatures on our Shores Chris Thorogood Thinking 3D: Books, Images and Ideas 9781851245345 from Leonardo to the Present HB £15 | Publication September Edited by Daryl Green & Laura Moretti Accompanying the exhibition at the Bodleian Library. 9781851245253 HB £35 | Publication October Heritage Apples Caroline Ball Now and Then: England 1970–2015 Daniel Meadows 9781851245161 Accompanying the exhibition at the HB £25 | Publication September Bodleian Library. 9781851245338 HB £25 | Publication October

How We Fell in Love with Italian Food Islamic Maps Diego Zancani Yossef Rapoport 9781851245123 9781851244928 HB £25 | Publication October HB £35 | Publication October

19 Join today

To join the Friends of the Bodleian or renew your membership, visit our website today: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/bodley/friends

You can also join or renew:

• in the Bodleian’s shops • at the Weston Library Information Desk • or over the phone by calling 01865 277234

Alternatively, complete the Friends of the Bodleian membership form and send a cheque made payable to ‘Friends of the Bodleian’ to Friends of the Bodleian, Clarendon Building, Bodleian Libraries, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BG.

Make your subscription or donation more effective by completing the Gift Aid declaration on the membership form, suitable for those who pay UK income tax.

If you have any enquiries, please e-mail [email protected] or call 01865 277 234.

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