| Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee |
[Apr. 17th, 2016|06:11 pm]
MorbidFrog
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Thursday 14 April: Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee
Yesterday Nadia and I went to see the John Dee exhibition at the Royal College of Physicians. The 60’s modernist building does stand out amongst the pretty regents park houses. Luckily, my friend Karen works there so she did us a little tour of the building and the libraries. Amusing fact that mustard carpet is listed!!!!!! And a mix of wood panelled rooms and concrete. Having spent a bit of time researching on the subject of his famous lost library for my dissertation it was very interesting to learn more and to see some of those long lost books. RCP hold 100 volumes that were stolen from Dee, (the little leaflet list the collection they have) interesting how another collector just tried to erase Dee name and place his instead. Great to see displayed items annotated and illustrated by Dee's own hand, especially his little doodles and annotations, one book had 3D geometrical forms coming out of it, one system to decrypt codes. Also on display his scrying mirrors and crystal balls you can usually see in Science Museums and f course the famous Glindoni painting of Dee doing a spell in presence of Queen Elizabeth and Kelley, I love the ideas they found a lot darker symbols underneath when the xray it and much easier to see than in the Wellcome. The buildings also has a medical collection and medicinal gardens, we were very amazed by the Anatomical tables, some of the oldest in the world displaying human veins, nerves and arteries so Gunther van Hagens of the 1650.Free and on until 29 July.
https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/events/scholar-courtier-magician-lost-library-john-dee
one of the library/conference room
the main lobby and where exhibition is and listed carpet
dee exhibits
those were amazing and so unusual
library from another angle
great idea
3D book
magical implements
secret message decription
xray showing circle of skulls
doodles
unusual poem
College museum collections
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