Day 46 Oxford 1 June 2018

In the morning we went back to the Ashmolean for Part 3.  It still took us two hours to go through the remaining galleries, mainly European art.  There were sketches by Michelangelo, Raphael, Rubens and Da Vinci.

Paintings by van Dyke, Constable and Turner...oh and a few others.

 The Devil's Bridge (St Gothard's Pass) - a Turner c.1803-4.

Seriously, if you are going to wrestle a snake while naked, you are just asking for trouble. In the background is a Turner landscape.

Here is Lawrencc of Arabia's original outfit.
Oh and probably the world’s most expensive Stradivarius @ US$10 million, aptly nicknamed The Messiah.

I  thought guitars were modern, I was wrong.  These looked good, but from the back they were spectacular.

We visited the Oxford Science Museum which is a small one of a few rooms. The highlight was a section of blackboard with calculations by Einstein. We were told they originally had two blackboards, but apparently one was accidentally wiped clean by a cleaner. We tried to visit the Oxford Museum in the Town Hall but it was closed for redevelopment.

We had a guided tour of the Bodleian Library. It was really interesting to discover that the library was established on the death of Humphrey of Lancaster, Henry IV’s brother, in 1447. He had donated 281 manuscripts but unfortunately only three of these survive to the current day. Most of the original collection were ordered destroyed by Henry VIII, as they were Catholic texts. The library, to avoid the expense of having to purchase texts, had an arrangement that they would keep a copy of every book printed. This might explain that the first copy they had was the Gutenberg Bible, the first book ever printed in the world with an apparently limited edition of 21. In effect it is a copyright library. The down side is that they have over 12 million titles.

The original security system of the library was having all the books chained up. An effective system but quite noisy.  The scholars in winter could only use the books between the hours of 10 and 4 as it was too dark otherwise. You weren’t allowed to use candles near the books.

Elizabeth was very impressed with the beautiful ceiling with its intricate pattern of coats-of-arms, each with a book at its centre.