List Of Manuscripts In The Cotton Library
This is a list of all manuscripts in the Cotton library, part of the collections of the British Library. It is currently incomplete.
Robert Bruce Cotton organized his library by placing busts of various Roman emperors and ladies over each of his book cabinets. The shelf of each cabinet had a letter assigned to it. Manuscripts were identified by the bust over the cabinet, the shelf letter, followed by its number (in Roman numerals) from the left side of the shelf. Thus, The Lindisfarne Gospels, Nero B IV, was the fourth manuscript from the left on the second shelf (shelf B) of the cabinet under the bust of Nero. A few of the cabinets had only one shelf so that the shelf letter was left out of the shelfmark. The British Museum retained Cotton's organization when the Cotton collection became one of the foundational collections of its library.
The physical arrangement of Cotton's Library continues to be reflected in citations to manuscripts once in his possession. His library was housed in a room 26 feet (7.9 m) long by six feet wide filled with bookpresses, each with the bust of a figure from classical antiquity on top. Counterclockwise, these are catalogued as Julius (i.e., Julius Caesar), Augustus, Cleopatra, Faustina, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. (Domitian had only one shelf, perhaps because it was over the door.) Manuscripts are now designated by library, bookpress, and number: for example, the manuscript of Beowulf is designated Cotton Vitellius A.xv, and the manuscript of Pearl is Cotton Nero A.x.
Read more about List Of Manuscripts In The Cotton Library: Augustus, Caligula, Claudius, Cleopatra, Domitian, Faustina, Galba, Julius, Nero, Otho, Tiberius, Titus, Vespasian, Vitellius, Septuaginta
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