The auction provides a fascinating insight into the history of British book collecting, and takes the reader on a journey through some of the greatest libraries ever assembled. The provenance of these tomes is extraordinary, from Charles II (bound specially for his library at St. James), the Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Pembroke, and Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, to William Beckford, Sir William Stirling Maxwell and the Earl of Bute.

Many of the books in the collection date to the Italian Renaissance, when there was a craze for excavation and uncovering the glories of antiquity. Archaeological finds in Rome and elsewhere at this time meant that Roman coins existed in substantial quantities and were therefore widely available; they provided genuine and datable images of Roman history, art and culture in a portable form. The earliest book is Fulvio’s Illustrium Imagines of 1517, one of the very first attempts at identifying famous faces of antiquity from numismatic evidence. A generation later, it was understood that images on coins could enhance and clarify historical knowledge, and they were used to help identify statues of Greeks and Romans. Catalogues of coins were also used by artists as sources of images and symbols, particularly for allegorical figures.

Patricia Milne-Henderson, an art historian who was married to Michael Jaffé (1923-1997, former Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum), began to assemble this comprehensive collection in the 1960s and, over the course of almost 50 years, sought out many rare and variant editions, with superb illustrations.