Fitzwilliam Museum Publications – serie

The collection of pre-1825 printed music in the Fitzwilliam Museum is one of the most important in the British Isles after the British Library and the Bodleian Library, particularly for its holdings of late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century music, areas in which the collection is noticeably strong. Many of the books are from the library of the Museum's founder, Richard Fitzwilliam, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion and of Thorncastle (1745-1816), one of the finest collections of the later eighteenth century that not only continued to grow in the early nineteenth but also survived intact. This in itself makes Fitzwilliam's collection of music a fascinating monument in the history of musical taste. Italian music looms large, but his interests were also broad enough to include French music by then unfashionable composers such as Lalande, Lully and Rameau, as well as the works of English seventeenth-century composers. The collection, considerably enriched by subsequent donations, is here fully catalogued for the first time.

It is many years since a major exhibition in England was devoted to the work of the whole of Samuel Palmer's circle, 'The Ancients', a group of young men which included, among others, the painters George and Welby Sherman, all of whom were much influenced by William Blake. Most recent exhibitions devoted to Palmer himself have stressed his early work of about 1835-35 - much of it done in the village of Shoreham in Kent - at the expense of his still interesting later work. This has tended to give an unbalanced view of the artist, and the present exhibition endeavours to correct this; it also relates Palmer's work to other members of the circle, and endeavours to demonstrate that the work of the Ancients is part of a wide European tradition and was created under the influence of artists such as Dürer, Ruisdael, and Nazarenes and especially Claude Lorrain. This fully annotated and illustrated catalogue considers all of these matters and in addition notes the strong literary influences on the work of Palmer, in particular that of the poems of John Milton.

Containing individual masterpieces by Botticelli, da Vinci, Michelangelo and Titian, the extensive collection of Italian drawings at the Fitzwilliam Museum ranges from the work of Pisanello in the early fifteenth century to Sandro Chia in the twentieth. This catalogue provides access to the eclectic collection in its entirety, featuring over 800 entries and 1400 colour illustrations. Spanish masterpieces by Ribera and Goya are also included. The collection was largely acquired in the twentieth century, mainly by the gift and benefaction of private individuals, and the introduction details the historical development of the collection. Special features include a sketch-book drawn in and around Paris in 1640 by Stefano della Bella and eighteenth-century Venetian drawings by the Tiepolo family. Later sketch-books of Italian costumes and an album of views in and around Naples at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius in 1822 bear witness to the development of tourism in Italy.