RENAISSANCE MAN:
The Reconstructed Libraries of European Scholars, 1450-1700
Series One: The Books and Manuscripts of John Dee, 1527-1608

Part 1: John Dee's Manuscripts from the Bodleian Library, Oxford

This project seeks to reassemble the actual books and manuscripts that once formed one of the finest libraries in Renaissance England.

John Dee (1527-1609) has been variously portrayed as the great ‘Magus’ of Elizabethan England; the father of English exploration who taught Raleigh, Drake and Frobisher to navigate; the mathematician who introduced Euclid to the English speaking world; and the learned bibliophile who tried to create a national library of considerable literary significance. Perhaps all are true.

What is beyond dispute is that he created a library which can today provide us with important insights into Renaissance culture and the conceptual underpinnings of the drama, poetry, politics and science of the age. It enables us to see the debt owed by the West to the great Arabic thinkers. It enables us to see the relative value placed on English books, compared with Continental publications. It enables us to see the centrality of manuscripts to the overall body of learning.

Dee’s library (c2,300 printed books and c400 mss) was dispersed during his lifetime. Now, thanks to the publication of John Dee’s Library Catalogue by Julian Roberts and Andrew Watson (Bibliographical Society, 1990) large sections can be brought together again.

We begin with 63 manuscripts including Dee’s Diary for 1577-1601, his Record of experiments, and an annotated ms text of Norton’s Ordinall of Alchemy. We commence the reconstruction with a large collection of manuscript material from the Department Of Western Manuscripts, Bodleian Library, Oxford. Bringing together 63 manuscripts in all, Part 1 of this microfilm edition includes medical texts, works on spheres and spirits, saints’ lives, commentaries, diaries, many works on alchemy and texts on astronomy (including many by early Islamic scientists), arithmetic, geometry, the art of navigation, optics and theology.

Volumes of particular interest include:

MS Ashmole 57. Thomas Norton, The ordinal of alchemy. 1577, beautifully written in Dee’s italic hand and bound in purple velvet.

MS Ashmole487-488 contain the text of Dee’s private diary and provide the most complete and reliable information we have of his life and times. Halliwell’s 1842 edition of this diary aroused much interest, but has proved to be unreliable and inaccurate.

MS Ashmole 1471 contains Geoffrey of Meaux, On the causes of the Black Death; Raymundus de Insula, Physica; R Lull, Ars generalis; Medical synonyms, multiplication tables and versions of Chiromancy and Alchemy.

MS Rawlinson D. 241. John Dee, A diary of experiments.

Any such list can only hint at the richness of the entire collection which will be of value to both Medieval and Renaissance scholars across many disciplines, including literature, science and history. There are a total of 13 texts by Roger Bacon, 3 texts of Euclid’s Elements, alchemical works of Thomas Norton, George Ripley, Hermes Trismegistus, Ramon Lull and others, works of Arabic science, literary and historical works by Bede, Boethius, Chaucer, Grosseteste and Lydgate and much more besides.