Talk - Cambridge Bibliographical Society

"Spiritus anima" – an unrecorded seventeenth-century alchemist's library at Clare College, Cambridge

Ed Potten (University of York) and  Dr Tim Chesters (Modern & Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge)

Wednesday 1 May, 2019, 5.00pm (tea from 4.30pm)

Milstein Seminar Rooms, University Library

The identity of the annotator of a collection of extraordinary seventeenth-century alchemical manuscripts, now in the Sloane Collection, has long eluded scholars. The recent discovery of a collection of sixty printed books in the Fellows' Library at Clare College, Cambridge, all annotated in the same characteristic hand, utilizing the same complex system of cross-referencing and the same approach to organizing and recording knowledge, casts new light on the Sloane annotator, his methods and his identity. Ed Potten (University of York, and formerly Head of Rare Books at the University Library) and Dr Tim Chesters (Modern & Medieval Languages, University of Cambridge) will share their discoveries about this enigmatic annotator, accompanied by a display of books.