: Library

A recent purchase and what a cracker! This manuscript diary is titled Tour of Wales and the Marches beginning on 22 August 1827 and consists of 55 pages of exquisite handwriting and ink sketches presumably by Eliza Rand. We say presumably as she hasn’t acknowledged herself as the author but as one of  the only two females on the tour, she mentions her sister Georgiana on p. 32, so it’s a simple enough process of elimination. The account of the tour includes several pen and ink drawings, including a view of the Havod Arms, a harper at Abergele and Beddgelert church. However, of most interest is a drawing of their guide at Cadair Idris, Richard Pugh, posing in front of his cottage, with staff in hand, wearing a goatskin 'mountain dress' and sporting a headress of goat's skull and horns! This was the traditional costume of the Welsh guides [believe it or not] but depictions of it are very rare indeed.

We hold a good selection of 18^thand 19^th century tours of Wales as they are an invaluable resource of historical information. Many of them are filled with comments and anecdotes on everyday subjects such as chosen routes; care and maintenance of coach and horses, conditions of roads, personalities met en route, quality of inns, descriptions of architecture and [of course!] the weather. For example, this particular diary ends with a summary of the places visited, the number of horses used and the number of turnpikes.  

This is just one of the many reasons I love being a librarian; opening a recently catalogued donation [published 1930] to find these beautiful butterfly wings pressed between the pages! Who knows how long they have nestled there undisturbed? 

Ioannis de Sacro Bosco [c. 1195 –c. 1256] was a scholar, monk and astronomer [probably English] who taught at the University in Paris. In around 1230 he wrote this authoritative medieval astronomy text Tractatus de Sphaera [On the Sphere of the World]. It gives a readable account of the Ptolemaic universe[the universe according to the Hellenistic astronomer Claudius Ptolemaeus in the 2^ndcentury AD] that went on to become required reading by students in all Western European universities for the next four centuries. Though principally about the heavens it contains a clear description of the earth as a sphere and its popularity shows the nineteenth-century opinion that medieval scholars after this date thought the Earth was flat as a fabrication [Wikipedia].

This copy [photographed here] is dated 1577 and forms part of our Vaynor Collection; this consists of a number of 16th and 17th century astronomical works, including several of the writings of Galileo. The collection was formed and donated by John Herbert James of Vaynor [which is just north of Merthyr Tydfil].

The condition of this book is excellent; the paper is bright and unmarked, robust to the touch and all the little volvelles [rotating paper wheel charts] still work perfectly.

It is bound in pure white vellum [calf skin] as are the majority of the Vaynor astronomical books which I always think gives them a very "celestial" look.