The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700

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[The Vice-Chancellor's Consolidated Catalogue]

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, Europe

Date:1695 Author (in assoc. with a ms or print source)Edward Lhwyd (1660-1709) Author (in assoc. with a ms or print source)Robert Plot (1640 [bap.]-1696) Documents in Manuscript: [The Vice-Chancellor's Consolidated Catalogue 1695](Catalogue)
 Annotation:In his regulations for the administration of the museum, Elias Ashmole stipulated that upon the founding of the musuem, certain appointed "visitors" should produce catalogues of various appointed portions of the collection, as a way of providing oversight to ensure the integrity of the museum. This manuscript is a scribal copy of the consolidated catalogue compiled by Robert Plot and Edward Lhwyd from the individual catalogues produced by these visitors:
* The Book of the Vice-Chancellor (fols. 1-137)
* The Book of the Dean of Christ Church (fols. 182-245)
* The Book of the Principal of Brasenose (fols. 252-286)
* The Book of the Regius Professor of Medicine (fols. 289-320)
* The Book of the Senior Proctor (fols. 357-428)
* The Book of the Junior Proctor (fols. 464-619)

These catalogues are updated versions of earlier the extant manuscripts produced by the visitors:
* The Book of the Vice-Chancellor (AMS 9, 1685-6)
* The Book of the Dean of Christ Church (AMS 8, 1684-90)
* The Book of the Senior Proctor (AMS 7, 1683-4)
* The Book of the Junior Proctor (AMS 18, c. 1685)

One of these earlier catalogues--the catalogue of antiquities and ethnographic artefacts compiled by the Junior Proctor (AMS 18, c. 1685)-- is excluded from this consolidated catalogue (for reasons unknown), and in its place is a catalogue of fossils, minerals, and shells. This consolidated catalogue also represents earlier versions of later recensions of other visitor catalogues: that of the Regius Professor of Medicine (AMS 10, c.1755) and that of the Principal of Brasenose (AMS 13, c. 1756).

 Bibliographic Source(s): Ashmolean Museum Oxford: Manuscript Cata..., page: 1-206