Annotations at Merton College, Oxford

Henry Neville donated a book on Ptolemaic astronomy to Merton College Library, Oxford. Written in Greek, it has annotations very similar in handwriting and style to the ones found in the books at Audley End. This is likely Henry Neville's handwriting, though more research would be necessary to determine that definitively.

I have permission from the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford to share these images of the title page and some annotations. There are more annotated pages, but I do not have access to the entire book.

Here is the library catalog entry for the book.

Henry Neville studied under Henry Savile, one of the foremost experts on both Greek language and astronomy in England at the time. So, it is no surprise that Henry Neville would have been annotating a book in Greek on Ptolemaic astronomy.

As you can see here, Henry Neville's portrait included an astronomical symbol and his family motto written in Greek referencing Ptolemaic astronomy.

Here is the inscription from the title page saying it was donated by Henry Neville, esquire, of Billingbear. Neville was knighted in 1599, so this implies the book might have been donated before then:

Here are some close-ups of the handwriting:

Here are all of the pages for which I have images: