Cambridge (England) -- History; University of Cambridge -- History
In 1564 the young Duke of Norfolk, who had married Lord Audley's
daughter and sole heir, and who was, moreover, descended from the early
benefactor of the College, the Duke of Buckingham, contributed liberally
towards both the revenues of Magdalene and its buildings. On the
occasion of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Cambridge, it is recorded that
"the Duke of Norfolk accompanied Her Majesty out of the town, and, then
returning, entered Magdalene College, and gave much money to the same;
promising £40 by year till they had builded the quadrant of the
College."[84] From this statement it is plain that the quadrangle of
Magdalene was not complete so late as 1654. The chapel and old library
which form the west side of this court, and also the frontage to the
street, had been built in 1475. The roof of the present chapel,
uncovered in 1847, shows that Buckingham College had a chapel on the
same site. The doorway in the north-west corner of the court retained a
carving of the three keys, the arms of the prior and convent of Ely, so
late as 1777, and thus probably indicated the chambers which were added
to Monks' College for the accommodation of the Ely Convent scholars. The
similar rooms assigned to the scholar-monks of Walden and Ramsey appear
to have been in the range of buildings forming the south side of the
College, parallel with the river, originally built in 1465, but
reconstructed in 1585. The new gateway in the street-front belongs also
to this late date. The chapel was thoroughly "Italianised" in 1733, and
again restored and enlarged in 1851.
The extremely beautiful building now known as the Pepysian Library,
beyond the old quadrangle to the east, which belongs to Restoration
times, although its exact date and the name of its architect are not
known, is the chief glory of Magdalene. It was probably approaching
completion in 1703, when Samuel Pepys, the diarist, who had been a sizar
of the College in 1650, and had lately contributed towards the cost of
the building, bequeathed his library to the College, and directed that
it should be housed in the new building. There, accordingly, it is now
deposited, and the inscription, "BIBLIOTHECA PEPYSIANA, 1724," with his
arms and motto, "_Mens cujusque is est quisque_," is carved in the
pediment of the central window. The collection of books is a specially
interesting one, invaluable to the historian or antiquary. Most of the
books are in the bindings of the time, and are still in the
mahogany-glazed bookcases in which they were placed by Pepys himself in
1666, and of which he speaks in his Diary under date August 24 of
that year:--
[Illustration: Tower & Gateway to Trinity College.
_To face p. 252_]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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