The Ashburnham House Fire
On 23 October 1731, there was a fire in Ashburnham House, and many manuscripts were lost, while others were badly singed or water-damaged - up to a quarter of the collection was either destroyed or damaged. The librarian, Dr. Bentley, escaped the fire while clutching the priceless Codex Alexandrinus under one arm, a scene witnessed and later described in a letter to Charlotte, Lady Sundon, by Robert Freind, headmaster of Westminster School. Mr. Speaker Onslow, as one of the statutory trustees of the library, directed and personally supervised a remarkable programme of restoration within the resources of his time. The published report of this work is of major importance in bibliography. Fortunately, copies had been made of some, but by no means all, of those works that were lost, and many of those damaged could be restored in the nineteenth century. Among the most important works to be damaged was the Byzantine Cotton Genesis, the illustrations of which nevertheless remain an important record of Late Antique iconography.
Read more about this topic: Cotton Library
Famous quotes containing the words house and/or fire:
“Strictly speaking, one cannot legislate love, but what one can do is legislate fairness and justice. If legislation does not prohibit our living side by side, sooner or later your child will fall on the pavement and I’ll be the one to pick her up. Or one of my children will not be able to get into the house and you’ll have to say, “Stop here until your mom comes here.” Legislation affords us the chance to see if we might love each other.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“The wound that’s made by fire will heal,
But the wound that’s made by tongue will never heal.”
—Tiruvalluvar (c. 5th century A.D.)