£300 to £500

The following items are available to sponsor within the price bracket of £300 to £500.

To sponsor one of these items, please contact the Alumni Officer:

Email: alumni@christs.cam.ac.uk
Telephone: 01223 761769 or 766710
Postal address: Development Office, Christ's College, St Andrew's Street, Cambridge, CB2 3BU, UK.

Foundation of the Universitie of Cambridge. With a Catalogue of the Principall Founders and Speciall Benefactors (1620)

Ref. SB17-18/11

SPONSORED!

This 17th-century manuscript, “Collected 1 November 1620”, is vibrantly illustrated with hand-coloured crests associated with the great and good of the University of Cambridge. Dedicated to the Master of Christ’s at the time, Valentine Cary (d.1626), the volume presents illustrated profiles of each Cambridge College, including the number of Fellows, scholars, servants and officers upon foundation, and a list of former Masters. The entry for Christ’s College lists “one Master, 12 fellowes and fortie seaven scholars, with 6 officers and servants”, when the College was re-founded from God’s House in 1505.

This unique item requires paper repairs to several lacunae, surface cleaning, and consolidation of the binding joints with Japanese paper. Sponsorship would also allow for a bespoke phase box to protect the volume as a whole.

Shelfmark: Christ’s College, GG.1.24

Hugo de Prato Florido, Sermones Dominicales super Evangelia et Epistolas (c.1480)

Ref. SB17-18/12

SPONSORED!

This large volume of Sunday Sermons was written by the Dominican monk, Hugo de Prato Florido (1262-1322). Believed to have been printed in Basel in the early 1480s by Michael Wenssler (fl.1472-99), this book was one of the 39 volumes donated by Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509).

In addition to being a foundational title of the Library, the book contains hand-coloration of capital letters throughout the text – this task required considerable time and attention to detail (and increased the expense of the incunable).  A 16th-century scholar also made marginal notes throughout the book.Sponsorship will allow us to repair the binding of this priceless piece of College history. 

Shelfmark: Christ’s College, Inc. 2.3

Henry More, Tetractys Anti-Astrologica (1681)

Ref. SB17-18/13

Cost: £310

As noted on its title page, this book is a reprint of the first four chapters of Henry More’s (1614-87) An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, first published in Cambridge in 1660 and here reissued just a year after the appearance of the Rev. John Butler’s (dates unknown) Hagiastrologica, or The Most Sacred and Divine Science of Astrology in 1680. More, a Christ’s Fellow, has no time for astrology, or, indeed, for the Rev. Butler, noting that Butler’s book is “rather a rag of old paganism than a divine science”, and that it consists “in two parts, Railing and Reasoning. And truly to give the author his due, in the former he is admirable”.

Our copy was donated by Thomas Standish (c.1633-1714), long-time Fellow of Christ’s. Its publisher, Walter Kettilby (d.1717), specialised in the printing of religious texts.The book needs considerable work to consolidate its structure using Japanese paper. 

Shelfmark: Christ’s College, C.14.10

Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning

Witches and Apparitions (1681)

Ref. SB17-18/14

Cost: £310

Like many other 17th century natural philosophers, Joseph Glanvill (1636-80) openly discussed his belief in the existence of witches and other supernatural spectres. Glanvill’s  efforts to demonstrate the existence of the immaterial were aided by the Cambridge philosopher and Christ’s alumnus Henry More (1614-87). Together, they sought to apply new methods of science to their supernatural enquiries.

This extraordinary volume gathers together their investigations into paranormal happenings, including “speakings, knockings, opening of doors when they were fast shut [and] sudden lights in the midst of a room”.

Sponsorship of this spooky item will allow for careful surface cleaning and essential repairs to split end- and headbands. 

Shelfmark: Christ’s College, C.14.24

John Milton, The Minor Poems of John Milton (1866)

Ref. SB17-18/15

Cost: £340

John Milton (1608-74), poet and pamphleteer, is one of Christ’s College’s most famous alumni. This beautiful edition of Milton’s Minor Poems is a valuable collection of his lesser known verse and also includes some of his most celebrated poetry, such as ‘Lycidas’ and ‘L’Allegro’. It is decorated with seven illustrations produced by Richard Westall (1765-1836), a renowned English painter. Westall also painted a portrait of John Milton dictating to his daughters which hangs in Sir John Soane’s Museum in London.

Our copy of Milton’s Minor Poems was generously donated from the library of Norman Callan (a significant donor of 19th-century material to our collections).Sponsorship of this charming work would allow for general repairs to the spine and the reattachment of the book’s front and back boards. 

Shelfmark: Uncatalogued item

Thomas Parkinson, A System of Mechanics and Hydrostatics (1789)

Ref.: SB17-18/16

Cost: £340

We already had the System of Mechanics section of this work, published separately in 1785, so when a donor recently offered the complete text we were happy to accept it, especially since Thomas Parkinson (1745-1830) was a Christ’s Fellow from 1771 to 1791. Parkinson’s book seems to have been written to aid those studying the Natural Sciences curriculum in Cambridge, and is dedicated to “the tutors, and other members of the university, interested in the advancement of philosophical knowledge.”

The volume is unusual because it is still in the stiff paper wrapper in which it would have been sold (at the time, purchasers often took their books, still in the cheap seller’s binding, to a professional bookbinder for binding in their preferred style); it retains some remnants of its original paper label.

We plan to preserve the paper binding, so the book will be boxed after treatment, including surface cleaning, humidity treatment for bent pages, and consolidation of front and back boards.

Shelfmark: Uncatalogued item

University Statutes and Christ’s College Accounts (s.d.)

Ref. SB17-18/17

Cost: £370

Donated to the College in 1983 by devoted bibliophile and Warden of All Souls’ College Oxford John Sparrow (1906-92), this manuscript is a unique item. Comprised of a number of different manuscript texts, the bulk of the volume is taken up with late 16th- or early 17th-century recitations of some University of Cambridge statutes. The jewel in the crown of this book (and the reason for Sparrow’s donation) is a section at the end commemorating Christ’s College benefactors from Henry VI to the mid-17th century, including a number of Library benefactors. A separate list of donors to the New Building (the current Fellows’ Building) forms the penultimate section of this manuscript.

Sponsorship would allow for repairs to holes and water damage on the first text folio, fixing of the spine to ensure no loss of material, and the creation of proper housing for the provenance material that accompanies the book. 

Shelfmark: Christ’s College, GG.1.23

Thomas Nutt, Humanity to Honey Bees (1837)

Ref. SB17-18/18

Cost: £420

Thomas Nutt’s (dates unknown) chief claim to apiaristic fame is that he patented the “Nutt Collateral Hive” (which he also claimed to have invented, though this is disputed). The bees in this hive lived in bee boxes that were arranged horizontally rather than vertically, since Nutt believed that making the bees climb vertically sapped their energy. In this book he also expounds his theory on the relationship between temperature and the likelihood of bees swarming. The quotation from Virgil (70-19BC) reproduced under the illustration here - “Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda” - may be translated as “The first duty must be to find a home and station for the bees”.

Our copy was donated only last year; while it complements our current holdings of books on bees and bee-keeping, it needs a considerable amount of work before it is strong enough for use by researchers. There is a split along the front joint, and both end-bands are damaged. The cloth case will need to be repaired, the board structure consolidated, and a new spine added. 

Shelfmark: Uncatalogued item

Ref. SB17-18/19

Cost: £480

This classical text is the only known work of the somewhat mysterious Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus (dates unknown). Commonly titled Historia Alexandri Magni, or “History of Alexander the Great”, the printed text derives from an incomplete 9th-century manuscript which bears Rufus’ name. Apart from this, nothing certain is known of Rufus, which has led to much speculation about his identity. His works enjoyed a revival during the Renaissance, particularly in Italy, where he was idolised.

This 17th-century duodecimo edition of his work was printed in Amsterdam and boasts a fine engraving of Alexander the Great (356-323BC) triumphantly astride his horse Bucephalus, trampling an unfortunate enemy.Sponsorship would allow extensive paper repairs to the text block, which shows signs of munching! Consolidation of a fragile spine is also required.

Shelfmark: Christ’s College, P.5.31

“The Humming-bird is the least of all birds: the head, together with the feathers, is of the bigness of a mean-sized sweet cherry”. 300 such imaginative descriptions grace the pages of Thomas Boreman’s (fl. 1730-43) illustrated guide to worldly (and occasionally otherworldly) birds and beasts. Boreman was the first publisher to primarily target the juvenile market, and this innovative item was the “first work on natural history published for children”.

The book was extremely popular, running to 38 editions by the end of the 19th century and influencing many later natural history publications, as well as Thomas Bewick’s renowned engravings. Sponsorship of this pioneering work would allow extensive repairs to the text block and delicate fold-out engravings, as well as support of a split front board and torn end caps.

Shelfmark: Christ’s College, L.15.50