Autograph inscription by Sir Henry Wotton to the Bodleian Library, 15 August 1633

Source: Bodleian Library, shelfmark Arch B. c. 3, verso of title page

Description: Autograph inscription by Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639) to the Bodleian Library, 15 August 1633.  Latin text and English translation below. In a distinguished series of diplomatic missions abroad, Wotton had served three times as English ambassador at Venice and was actually resident there when the Doge Grimani died in 1605, By the time of this donation to the Bodleian, Tycho Brahe was already amongs the famous men of letters depicted in the frieze running around what is now the Upper Reading Room (image 2).  The Bodleian also possesses a contemporary portrait of the Danish astronomer (image 3)

Bibliographic reference: The Catalogue of English Literary Manuscripts 1450–1700: Sir Henry Wotton (1568–1639), Books and Manuscripts Owned or Inscribed by Wotton: *WoH305

Latin text: from Logan Pearsall Smith, ed., The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, 2 vols (Oxford, 1907), vol. II, p. 347.

Henricus Wottonius, Doctis Advenis s.

Sciat lector hunc librum complecti partim Mechanica typis excusa coloribusque depicta : quibus Ticho Brahe, Nobilis Danus, usus est ex sua propria inventione, sumptuque Regio in rimandis Coeli arcanis, partim, prosphonetica duo epigrammata cum inerrantium Stellarum octavi orbis accurato Canone propria eiusdem manu exarata (quem Cimbricum Ptolemaeum merito vocemus), Et ab ipso Scriptore Marino Grimanno Venetorum tum Principi oblata, haud dubie hoc consilio ut Bessoriana Venetiis Bibliotheca conderentur; quae quum postea inter alios MS. codices casu coempta in possessionem meam devenissent, ex Musaeolo nostro Etonae, Oxonium Almam olim Altricem meam transferri curavimus, eiusdemque Praecelebri Bibliothecae perpetuo consecrari volumus1: Keimhlion ob Authoris Memoriam ingentis Pretii, ob Donatoris, Nullius.

Anno unici Mediatoris inter Deum et homines, MDCXXXIII, Ipsis Augusti Mensis Eidibus.

* In 1604 Wotton had presented to the Bodleian a MS. of the Koran. [Annals of the Bodleian Library, Macray, 1890» p. 81.)

English translation by Floris Verhaart:

Henry Wotton greets the learned strangers

The reader should know that this book comprises, on the one hand, the instruments, printed and hand-coloured, which Ticho [sic] Brahe <[inserted:] a noble Dane> made use of, through his own invention at the expense of the king, in order to examine the secrets of heaven; and on the other hand, two laudatory epigrams with an accurate catalogue of the fixed stars of the eighth sphere, written down with his own hand, [on which account]we should rightfully call him the Cimbrian Ptolemy. These works were offered by the author himself to Marino Grimanni [sic], the prince of the Venetians, undoubtedly with the intention that they would be deposited in the Bibliotheca Bessoriana [sic]. When these works came into my possession, after I had acquired them by chance together with other manuscripts, I ensured that they were transferred from my little collection at Eton to Oxford, once my alma mater, and wish them to be immortalized in [the university’s] very famous library, as a treasure of immense value on account of the memory of the author, not the donor.

In the year of the only mediator between God and men 1633 15 August

* Today, the Biblioteca nazionale marciana.