(23rd May) Botany and Zoology Treasure of New College Library

When? – 11 am – 4 pm, Monday 23rd May
Where? – New College’s Lecture Room 4

As part of New College Library’s series of subject-themed exhibitions, on Monday, 23 May we shall have on display for you rare books and manuscripts from the library’s fabulous collections relating to Botany and Zoology.

This exhibition is the latest in a series, instituted in 2018 by the library, that has so far featured Classics, Geometry and Astronomy, Modern Languages, and New College Women Writers.  And it marks our return to subject-themed exhibitions since the start of the pandemic.

For this display, we are providing you with a rare opportunity to see, among many other treasures: a 13th-century manuscript of Pliny’s Historia naturalis; the first known description of plants from the Americas (1542) by Leonhart Fuchs (after whom the fuchsia is named); the best-known English herbal, by John Gerard (1633); the first published book by New College fellow Robert Sharrock, on growing vegetables (1660); a first edition of Robert Hooke’s spectacular Micrographia (1665); and a printed natural history of Oxfordshire, with the first known published illustration of a dinosaur bone (1677).

From 11 am till 4 pm on Monday in New College’s Lecture Room 4, we shall be exhibiting for you—with explanatory captions—some of our Botany and Zoology treasures.

Please do come along—and enjoy our exhibition.

We very much hope to see you there.