Cambridge Digital Library ― University of Cambridge

Ancient India and Iran Trust

Established in 1978, the Ancient India and Iran Trust occupies a unique position as an independent charity concerned with the study of early South Asia, Iran and Central Asia, promoting both scholarly research and popular interest in the area.

Bateson Archive

William Bateson (1861-1926) was a pioneering and controversial figure in the early history of genetics. His papers are a fascinating resource for the study of his career and scientific method. Covering the period 1861 to 1935, they include field journals, lecture notes, research notes, draft publications, correspondence and photographs.

Bateson-Punnett Notebooks

William Bateson and Reginald Punnett were the founders of experimental genetics in Britain and the main advocates of Gregor Mendel's models of inheritance. Their experiments are recorded in a series of laboratory notebooks acquired by Cambridge University Library from the Department of Genetics, a selection of which is now presented here.

Board of Longitude

Cambridge University Library holds the entire archive of the Board of Longitude, the state organization established in the eighteenth century to evaluate methods for finding ships’ position and to encourage a host of projects in instrument design, clock-making, mapping and voyaging.

The Cairo Genizah Collection

The Taylor-Schechter Cairo Genizah Collection at Cambridge University Library is the world's largest and most important single collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts.

Cambridge University Archives

The University Archives aims to provide a full and richly varied picture over time of the University's organisation and governance, its key functions and activities, major developments and achievements. From modest beginnings, housed alongside other valuables in the University chest, the archives now occupy ca 3000 metres of shelving at the University Library.

Caricatures of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune (1870-71)

Cambridge University Library holds a world-class collections of caricatures from the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune. The caricatures provide key visual material on the war and the ensuing political turmoil in France. Produced in their thousands, they make fun of politicians and public figures of the time, soldiers and civil populations during the war, the siege of Paris by the Germans, and the civil war that followed.

Cavendish Laboratory

This archive contains historic photographs of people, equipment and events, mostly from the early history of the Cavendish Laboratory up to about 1970. There are many classic photographs of equipment used in the pioneering discoveries made by members of the Laboratory. The preservation of the most important of these in an accessible digital Photographic Archive has been a priority as we begin a new phase in the history of the Laboratory with the rebuilding of the whole Laboratory over the next three to four years.

Chinese Works

The Chinese collections comprise about half a million individual titles. The items displayed here show the temporal range, diversity of media and variety of subject-matter contained within the collections, from the oracle bones (the oldest documents in the Library), to unique manuscripts and printed books, historical documents and epigraphical rubbings.

Christ's College

Christ's College was first established as God's House in 1437 by William Byngham, a London parish priest. Shortly after receiving its Royal Licence from Henry VI in 1446, God's House was forced to move from its original site to make way for the King's new project (what was to become King's College). God's House moved to its present site in 1448.

Christian Works

A selection of some of our finest Christian manuscripts and early printed books, from the Bible to the liturgy, spanning over 1000 years of worship and debate.

Civilian Internment

The Royal Commonwealth Society Collection has digitised the archives of two Second World War civilian internment camps established by the Japanese at Singapore, generously funded by a Research Resources Award from the Wellcome Trust. The records are of immense interest to the families of internees and a wide range of researchers, since few survivors ever spoke of their traumatic ordeal.

Clare College

Clare College Archive includes administrative and academic records, documents of college clubs and societies, finances, land and property owned by the college and personal papers relating to individual members of the College. The Archives provide a valuable insight into many aspects of the history and life of the College from the 16th century to the present day

Codex Zacynthius

Codex Zacynthius is a palimpsest. The older level is an eighth-century copy of St Luke’s Gospel (only parts of the first eleven chapters survive) with a marginal commentary. This was erased at the end of the twelfth century and replaced with a lectionary of the New Testament, also in Greek. This later text may have been written in Rhodes.

Curious Objects

Amongst the Library’s extraordinary collection of around eight million printed books, manuscripts and digital holdings are some unusual and unexpected items. From an ostrich feather and ectoplasm to an old boot, a boomerang and beard hair sent to Charles Darwin, the curious objects in the second public exhibition of our 600th anniversary year come from all corners of the world and span every era of human history from the Stone Age to the Space Age.

Darwin Manuscripts

The Charles Darwin Papers in the Manuscripts Department of Cambridge University Library hold nearly the entire extant collection of Darwin’s working scientific papers. Paramount among these documents are Charles Darwin’s Evolution Manuscripts, which are being published online at the Cambridge Digital Library and simultaneously at the Darwin Manuscripts Project in collaboration with the Darwin Correspondence Project.

Darwin-Hooker Letters

These letters are a connecting thread that spans forty years of Darwin's mature working life from 1843 until his death in 1882. They bring into sharp focus every aspect of Darwin's scientific work throughout that period, and illuminate the mutual friendships he and Hooker shared with other scientists, but they also provide a window of unparalleled intimacy into the personal lives of the two men.

Department of Engineering

The annual Department of Engineering photo competition highlights the variety and beauty of engineering. For many people, engineering conjures up images of bridges, tunnels and buildings. But the annual University of Cambridge engineering photo competition shows that not only is engineering an incredibly diverse field, it’s a beautiful one too.

Downing College

Downing College was founded by Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet, with wealth inherited from his grandfather, the 1st Baronet, a statesman who served both Cromwell and Charles II and built No. 10 Downing Street. Provision for a new Cambridge College was made in the founder’s will in 1717 but, following his death in 1749 and the death of his only surviving heir in 1764, a protracted legal battle with his widow and her heirs meant that the new College was not founded until 1800, the first new Cambridge college in over 200 years.

Dorothy Needham

Dorothy Mary Needham, née Moyle (1896-1987), FRS, was born in London and educated at Claremont College, Stockport. She was admitted to Girton College Cambridge in 1915 to study for the Natural Sciences Tripos. She passed Part I in 1918 and Part II, specialising in Chemistry, in 1919. Working with Frederick Gowland Hopkins in the Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry, Cambridge she received the 'title' of BA and MA in 1923 and of PhD in 1926. Her most important work was on carbohydrate metabolism in muscle.

Exhibition Items

The Library holds regular exhibitions, usually organised around a particular theme or collection. Depending on the chosen theme, the exhibition cases might contain anything from irreplaceable works of world importance to newspapers or printed ephemera. They demonstrate the breadth of the Library's holdings and often yield surprises.

Fairbank Papers

The diaries and photographs digitised here give a vivid impression of the life of an army surgeon during the First World War, first on the Western Front, including the Second Battle of Ypres and the Battle of Loos, and later in Salonika.

Forman and Napier Casebooks

The astrologer-physicians Simon Forman and Richard Napier recorded 80,000 consultations between 1596 and 1634. This is one of the largest surviving sets of medical records in history. Forman’s and Napier’s casebooks are presented here as part of a collaboration between the Cambridge University Digital Library and the Casebooks Project.

Girton College

Founded in 1869, Girton College was the first residential establishment in Britain to provide full time study at degree level for women. The Girton College Archive and Special Collections encapsulate the College’s history – from its foundation in 1869, through the admission of women to the University of Cambridge in 1948, the subsequent admission of men to the College in the 1970s, and on to the forward-looking and vibrant Girton of today.

Ghost Words

A palimpsest [PA-lim(p)-sest] is a manuscript that has been cleaned and used again, a newer text written over an older one. Palimpsests are the literary equivalent of buried treasure, and scholars over the last two centuries have patiently sought to decipher the lost or forgotten words hidden under layers of newer ink.

Hebrew Manuscripts

For over five hundred years Cambridge University has been building up one of the world’s most important collections of Hebrew manuscripts.

History of the New Museums

This collection tells the story of a crucial phase in the history of Cambridge science, from the point of view of a particular place: the ‘New Museums Site’ in the centre of town. The prehistory, development and work at the site are covered in an archive assembled by its first administrator, John Willis Clark

Islamic Manuscripts

The Library's Islamic Manuscripts collection began in the 1630s and now numbers over 5,000 works, which shed light on many aspects of the Islamic world, its beliefs and learning. Our initial selection includes several early Qur'anic fragments on parchment.

Japanese Works

Items from Cambridge University Library's important collection of early Japanese books and manuscripts, representing a wide range of the various aspects of early Japanese learning and excellent samples of Japan’s early printing culture.

Joseph Needham

Dr. Joseph Needham FRS, FBA (1900-1995) was one of the most outstanding intellectuals of the 20th century. As Reader in Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow (later Master) of Gonville and Caius College, in the inter-war years he was one of a group of left-wing, socially active scientists that included such figures as J.D. Bernal, C.H. Waddington and J.B.S. Haldane, among others. His interests and publications ranged far and wide beyond biochemistry - from the history of science and the relationships between science and religion, to steam trains and morris dancing.

King's College

From its foundation by Henry VI in 1441 to the present day, King's College has preserved records of its internal administration, the construction of its buildings, and the lives of its members. The archives offer researchers outstanding sources for the study of architecture, religious upheaval, patterns of consumption, development of the curriculum, social and political history. In addition, the archives include the administrative records of estates the College was given by Henry VI.

Landscape Histories from the Air

Cambridge University’s Collection of Aerial Photographs, CUCAP, represents a unique, long and proud tradition of aerial survey and interpretation in the British Isles and Europe. Much of the imagery is remarkable, of great technical interest (e.g. early colour aerial photography), of high academic value, including as it does records of coastal change, discoveries of archaeological sites and the pre-and post-industrial landscapes of Britain.

Landscapes and Monuments: Iran to Spain

Garth Fowden is a historian of first millennium CE Eurasia, who in pursuit of his interests has travelled extensively in the Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. For the greater part of his career he has lived and worked in Greece. This site presents a digitized version of the photographic archive he developed while conducting research on the landscapes and monuments of these regions.

Laurence Sterne

Laurence Sterne (1713-68) burst onto the London literary scene in early 1760 from the relative obscurity of his life so far as a Yorkshire clergyman to his new-found role as a successful fiction-writer. The first two volumes of his wildly popular – and controversial – Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759-67) caused a wave of enthusiasm and criticism alike, while Sterne himself was celebrated as the latest literary sensation.

Lewis-Gibson

In August 2013 Cambridge University Library and the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, jointly purchased 1700 medieval Jewish manuscripts collected by the twin sisters Agnes Smith Lewis (1843–1 926) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1843–1920). The manuscripts were acquired by the two Scotswomen as they passed through Egypt on their adventurous visits to the monastery at St Catherine’s, Sinai, to inspect its ancient library towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Lines of Thought

Across six themes, this exhibition highlights key moments in the evolution of human thought. They show how the collections here in Cambridge represent and underpin some of the most significant developments in human history. The books, manuscripts, archives and digital objects we house do not stand in isolation. Thousands of lines of thought run through them, back into the past and forward into tomorrow’s teaching, learning, research and innovation.

Macclesfield Collection

The Macclesfield Collection principally includes the archives of John Collins (1625-1683) and William Jones (1675-1749). As well as being mathematicians in their own right, both men corresponded with leading scientific figures of their day and so the collection includes autograph material by Isaac Newton, Edmund Halley, Henry Briggs, Roger Cotes, Henry Oldenburg and Robert Hooke.

Maps

The Map Department of Cambridge University Library holds 1.3 million maps and over 40,000 atlases and books on cartography, covering the whole world in a range of scales, from detailed topographic maps showing the lie of the land and the man-made features resting upon it, to world maps showing ocean currents or time zones.

Marshall Library

The Marshall Library plays a central role in supporting the teaching, learning and research of the Faculty of Economics and sustaining the Faculty's international reputation as a centre of excellence in the subject. It currently has a collection of over 100,000 volumes containing 60,000 books and includes archives and special collections.

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

The Polonsky Foundation Greek Manuscripts Project, a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge and Heidelberg, aims to conserve, catalogue and digitise the medieval and early modern Greek manuscripts held across Cambridge and those in the Bibliotheca Palatina, which is split between Heidelberg University Library and the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.

Michaelides

Papyrus was the main writing material of the Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic societies in Egypt for 4,000 years before paper took its place. The bulk of historical, linguistic, social and economic evidence of the early Islamic Era can be found on papyrus originally produced in Egypt. The Michaelides fragments comprise the largest private collection of Arabic papyri to be found in any institution worldwide.

Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest

This complex manuscript is a palimpsest containing portions of two ancient Qurʼāns, probably written in the 7th or 8th century CE. Alba Fedeli, a scholar of Qurʼānic manuscripts, has engaged in an extensive research project, uncovering the historic context of the Mingana-Lewis Palimpsest and applying new methods in an attempt to create a possible reconstruction of the Qurʼānic under-writing.

Montaigne's Library

The Montaigne Library of Gilbert de Botton is a remarkable collection of books connected with the life and times of Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), including ten volumes from Montaigne’s personal library. It was assembled by the Montaigne scholar and financier Gilbert de Botton (1935–2000) and came to Cambridge University Library in 2008.

Music

The music collections at Cambridge University Library play an important role in the preservation of musical heritage, both on a national and international level. From printed and manuscript music scores and texts on music to ephemera and concert programmes, archival materials documenting the life and work of composers, music scholars and performers, a huge variety and breadth of material has been collected over several centuries. We launch with a selection of important early lute music, digitised and described in collaboration with the Lute Society.

Mycenae Archive

This collection draws on the core collection in the Archives of the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge. The collection principally consists of notebooks, drawings, plans and photographs of the archaeological endeavours of the team of the British School at Athens at Mycenae in 1920-1923, 1939 and 1950-1957. Some of the documents presented here are housed in collections held in the British School at Athens.

Newnham College

Founded in 1871, when women had no access to the University’s libraries and laboratories, Newnham College took learning firmly into its own hands. With generous support from benefactors, it created and developed a library, which allowed a Newnham student to study on equal terms with the men around her. The result is that this women’s college has a large and comprehensive working collection, as well as rare book and archival collections of some distinction.

Newton Papers

Cambridge University Library holds the largest and most important collection of the scientific works of Isaac Newton (1642-1727). We present here an initial selection of Newton's manuscripts, concentrating on his mathematical work in the 1660s.

Oliver Rackham

Born in Bungay, Suffolk, in 1939, Oliver Rackham was educated at Norwich School, matriculated at Corpus Christi College in 1957, and was elected Fellow of the college in 1964. Although he began by studying physics, as a graduate student he turned his attention to botany, particularly the physiology of plant growth and transpiration.

Pembroke College

Pembroke College, founded in 1347 by Marie de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke, is the third oldest of the Cambridge colleges, it was the first to have its own chapel (Christopher Wren’s first building). In order to make the College’s collections more accessible, we are hoping to make some of our unique items available digitally.

Peterhouse

Peterhouse (founded 1284) is the oldest of the Cambridge Colleges, and holds a significant collection of medieval manuscripts. As part of the process of recataloguing and preserving the College's collections, it has been decided to present highlights from the Peterhouse manuscripts in digital form.

Queens' College

‘The Quenes collage of sainte Margarete and saint Bernard’ was founded in 1448 by Queen Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI. This followed extensive preparatory work undertaken by Andrew Dockett, Rector of St Botolph’s, who having previously obtained foundation charters for the college from Henry VI in 1446 and 1447 (that were subsequently rescinded), became the college’s first president when it was finally established in 1448.

The Rising Tide

2019 marks 150 years since the founding of Girton College, the first women’s college at Cambridge, and the first in Britain to offer residential higher education for women. This moment of equality was however, short lived. Any ‘firsts’ in women’s education Cambridge could claim were undermined by the length of time it took the University to award women the degree, not doing so until 1948; it was the last British university to do so. This major breakthrough was hard won, as was equality in education, pay, and a say in how the university is administered.

Royal Asiatic Society

The Royal Asiatic Society was founded in 1823 by the eminent Sanskrit scholar Henry Thomas Colebrooke. It received its royal charter the following year from George IV for the 'investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of Science, Literature and the Arts in relation to Asia'. Throughout its history many distinguished scholars have contributed to its work and today it provides an active forum for those who are interested in Asia.

Royal Commonwealth Society

The Royal Commonwealth Society (RCS) Library collections are a treasure-trove of information, pictorial and written, print and manuscript, focussing on the Commonwealth and Britain's former colonial territories. This initial selection includes some of the spectacular art work and photograph collections in the RCS Library.

Royal Commonwealth Society 150

The RCS collections contain stunning visual records relating to the Commonwealth and Britain’s former colonial territories. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Royal Commonwealth Society and the 25th anniversary of the RCS library and archives becoming part of Cambridge University Library, we have digitised over one hundred treasures not previously available in digital form.

Royal Library

In September 1715, King George I made a gift to Cambridge University Library that would change it for ever - over 30,000 books and manuscripts, trebling the size of the Library overnight. Amongst the remarkable items in this collection are the Moore Bede, the Book of Deer and the Life of Edward the Confessor.

Sanskrit Manuscripts

A full catalogue of our Sanskrit manuscript collection, comprising more than 1,600 works in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Tamil and other ancient and medieval South Asian languages, produced over a time-span of more than 1,000 years.

Sassoon Journals

The notebooks kept by the soldier-poet Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1 967) during his service in the British Army in the First World War are among the most remarkable documents of their kind, and provide an extraordinary insight into his participation in one of the defining conflicts of European history.

Scriptorium

A digital archive of manuscript miscellanies and commonplace books from the period c. 1450-1720, drawn from the collections of ten partner institutions: a number of college libraries in Cambridge (Emmanuel, King's, Queens, St John's, Trinity) as well as the Cambridge University Library, the Brotherton Library in Leeds, and other archives, such as that of Holkham Hall in Norfolk.

Shahnama Project

Firdausi’s Shahnama is a work of mythology, history, literature and political ethics: a living epic poem that pervades and expresses many aspects of Persian culture. This project brings you a massive collection of manuscripts of the Shahnama and a display of the miniature paintings in each one, allowing you to compare depictions of a particular scene in the narrative and to explore text-image relationships across the corpus.

Sidney Sussex College

Sidney Sussex College was founded on 14 February 1596, as a ‘good and godlie monument for the mainteynance of good learninge’ in accordance with the will of Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (d. 1589). Although the youngest of the old Cambridge colleges, Sidney has acquired 121 manuscripts, ranging in date from a late 10th-century Ordinale to a 19th-century Torah scroll.

Skilliter Centre

The Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies supports research into the history, literature, and culture of the Ottoman empire and the early Turkish Republic. It seeks to encourage knowledge and understanding of a major Muslim empire with large European and Mediterranean territories, and to assist scholars from many disciplines in exploring connections between their own work and Ottoman studies.

Spanish Chapbooks

These predecessors of the yellow press provide a fascinating bird’s eye view of Spanish popular culture from the eighteenth century onwards.

St Catharine's College

St Catharine’s was founded in 1473, as the ninth College of the University of Cambridge. Our founder was Robert Woodlark, one of the original Fellows of King’s College, where he was Provost from 1452 to 1479. Today, our special collections comprise about 10,000 printed books, and over 65 manuscripts

St John's College

Built in large part thanks to the generosity of John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln, the Upper Library now holds some 30,000 early printed books, while the Special Collections as a whole include further printed collections associated with Members of the College, 270 medieval manuscripts, several hundred post-medieval manuscripts, plus extensive collections of personal papers, artefacts, photographs, maps, and artworks.

Tennyson

Cambridge is home to many of the most significant manuscripts of Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809–92). The bulk of these materials are held at Trinity College, where Tennyson was a student between 1827 and 1831. In 1897 the College was presented with the earliest extant full-scale draft of In Memoriam, Tennyson’s most famous poem.

Treasures of the Library

In this special collection we draw together books, manuscripts and other items of particular significance. Many of them have been displayed in Library exhibitions in the past – now they can be accessed at any time, from anywhere in the world, and browsed cover to cover.

Trinity Hall

Trinity Hall was found in 1350, as the fifth College of the University of Cambridge. Our founder was William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich and he bequeathed a number of volumes of civil law, canon law, chapel books and theology which formed the basis of the College’s first library.

University Library

The momentous decision to move the University Library to a new location was taken by the Senate on 7 May 1921. These volumes record the process of building the library, and the eight-week operation in June and July 1934 to transfer the contents from the Old Schools to the finished building.

Waterloo

The Battle of Waterloo was the climactic engagement of a campaign that pitted an invading French army under Napoleon Bonaparte against a combined force of Allied troops. The French were routed, and the warfare that had plagued Europe for more than two decades was definitively ended: there were to be no hostilities on such a scale on the continent until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Through its impact on the politics and power-relationships of a Europe approaching the height of its worldwide influence, the outcome of Waterloo remains significant to this day.

Westminster College

Westminster College is home to the archives, rare books, and special collections of Westminster College and those of Cheshunt College, including the correspondence of the Countess of Huntingdon. Westminster also houses the archives of both the Presbyterian Church of England and the Churches of Christ, together with the holdings of the United Reformed Church History Society, on behalf of that Society

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Landscapes and Monuments: Iran to Spain

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