Cambridge University Library Special Collections

Joyful Sounds of Salvation

Posted on 14 December 2022 by William Hale

The Library Choir has been performing carols in the University Library Entrance Hall for more than thirty years. This year each of the seven carols […]

Christmas, Music, Special Collections

An Early “Mirror for Princes” in Southeast Asia: The First Known Malay Translation of Akhlaq-e Mohseni

Posted on 12 December 2022 by Majid Daneshgar

This post is by Munby Fellow Dr Majid Daneshgar, whose project for 2022/23 is entitled Revisiting Malay Islamic Manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library: Global […]

South Asian, Special Collections

Egyptian antiquities ..in a country house in Bulac From Views in Egypt by Luigi Mayer. 1801.

A game of stones – how Cambridge acquired a cast of the Rosetta Stone

Posted on 7 December 2022 by Catherine Ansorge

Exactly two hundred years ago, in 1822, the French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion (1790–1832) succeeded in his attempts to decipher the hieroglyphic text of the famous Rosetta […]

Anniversaries, Archives, Cambridge University history, Collectors and collecting, Near and Middle Eastern, Special Collections, Travel

Introducing the CUL Additional Fragments Project or Three Lessons in Fragmentology

Posted on 1 December 2022 by Special Collections

A post by Dr Marie Turner. A square of parchment no larger than a postage stamp, bearing a scattering of words from a Middle English […]

Fragmentarium project, Fragments, Manuscripts, Medieval manuscripts, Special Collections

Simon Armitage on Ukraine: a new acquisition

Posted on 14 November 2022 by Special Collections

Private press books have been acquired by the Library since the late nineteenth century, when William Morris’s Kelmscott Press (active 1891-98) led to the flourishing […]

Acquisitions, Poetry, Rare Books, Recent acquisitions, Special Collections

Cosimo III de Medici (1642-1723), Grand Duke of Tuscany

Cosimo de Medici’s visit to Cambridge

Posted on 14 November 2022 by William Hale

The future Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo III de Medici (1642-1723), visited England in the spring of 1669, as part of a series of European […]

Acquisitions, Astronomy, Poetry, Recent acquisitions, Science, Special Collections

The Rose Book Collecting prize 2022: Illustrated books from early-modern Japan

Posted on 13 October 2022 by Liam Sims

The Rose Prize is awarded annually to a current student of the University, for a coherent collection on any subject from any period. The winner […]

Collectors and collecting, Friends of Cambridge University Library, Illustration, Japanese, Rose Book-Collecting Prize, Special Collections

Charming creepy-crawlies in the Middle Ages

Posted on 4 October 2022 by Clarck Drieshen

Animals often crop up among the medical recipes in the over 180 medieval manuscripts that Cambridge University Library is currently conserving, cataloguing, and digitising in […]

Curious Cures, Manuscripts, Medicine, Medieval manuscripts, Special Collections

Seventeenth-Century Catholic Philosophers in Cambridge University Library: guest post by Niall Dilucia

Posted on 22 August 2022 by Special Collections

In this guest post, Cambridge PhD student Niall Dilucia writes about his research into early modern intellectual history, examining the relationship between philosophy, theology, and […]

Collectors and collecting, Library history, Rare Books, Special Collections