This academic year began with the installation of a new Provost (chair of the board of governors), Sir Nicholas Coleridge. He took up the role 400 years after one of his most intriguing and colourful predecessors, Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639). Wotton was a diplomat and author, who had served as Britain’s ambassador to Venice for almost 20 years.
He was also a bibliophile. It has been assumed that most of the Renaissance Italian manuscripts now in Eton College Library were given by him, and there is firm evidence that 12 manuscripts now here were once in his collection. A recent article in the Eton College Collections Journal (2024 issue, pp. 12-13) explores some of Wotton’s books in more detail.
The three examples of Wotton’s manuscripts shown here relate to architecture, a special interest of his. In 1624, he published The Elements of Architecture, one of the first books in English on architectural theory.
On the art of building
ECL MS 128
Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building, Florence, second half of the 15th century (ECL MS 128)
This treatise by Alberti (1404-72), a Florentine artist, architect and arts theorist, is one of the most influential works on the practice of architecture. It advocates the classical principle of beauty as a rational, mathematical system of proportions and harmony. This important manuscript has an extra 13 pages at the end, which repeat some of the text. In recent years, these have been shown to be in Alberti’s hand. Below is one of these.
Life of St Gregory
ECL MS 124
John the Deacon, Life of St Gregory, Abbey of Farfa, Italy, 1075-1125 (ECL MS 124)
This is one of the oldest volumes in Eton’s collection. The drawing on display portrays the funeral of Gregory the Great, with what is believed to be an accurate representation of the old façade of St Peter’s Church in Rome at the turn of the 12th century. The present basilica was built during the 16th and 17th centuries.
De Architectura
ECL MS 137
Vitruvius Pollio, De Architectura, Italy, 14th or 15th century (ECL MS 137)
This is a copy of the only treatise on architecture to survive from antiquity. Wotton’s Elements of Architecture is a free translation of this work. The portrait of Vitruvius here shows him as a medieval figure carrying an axe and an adze. In this work, Vitruvius states that buildings should have strength, utility and beauty. His discussion of perfect proportion in architecture and the human body led to Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man.
Rachel Bond, College Librarian
