Fitzwilliam Museum

This conference paper aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of Augmented Reality technology as a powerful tool for communication and dissemination of Cultural Heritage. The case study examined in this paper is an Augmented Reality (AR) app designed for the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (UK). The app, called Ways of Seeing, conveys to the public conservation reports and non-invasive technical analysis about an Italian Renaissance artwork, created in the 15th century by the Florentine painter Jacopo del Sellaio. Using this kind of Extended Reality interactive digital interpretation, museums can bridge the gap between scholarly research and public knowledge, giving accessibility to a largely unknown set of facts.

The activity of the Florentine-Marchigian painter, Antonio di Domenico da Firenze, in the field of book illustration is here reconstructed for the first time. His masterpiece as an illuminator is identified in a book of hours now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

This, the third volume of AIUK, publishes new editions of the nine Attic inscriptions in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, seven of which are on display in the Museum’s Greek and Roman galleries. In addition to two Assembly decrees (1, 2), the collection contains the “Sandwich marble”, an important set of accounts of the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos (3). It also includes six inscribed Attic funerary monuments (4-9), and the discussions of the individual monuments are preceded by a general introduction to the major styles of private Attic funerary monument represented in the collection. The volume contains a number of new readings and fresh observations on most of the inscriptions discussed.

Dr John Disney continues to be remembered for his benefaction of a chair in archaeology at Cambridge University. He also donated his collection of classical (and mostly Roman) sculpture to Cambridge. Disney's father, the Reverend John Disney DD, inherited the Grand Tour collection of antiquities from Thomas Brand-Hollis who displayed them at his home, The Hyde, near Ingatestone in Essex. The display reflected the republican values of Brand-Hollis and his benefactor and close friend Thomas Hollis. Dr John Disney was involved with the Chelmsford Philosophical Society and helped to create the Chelmsford Museum. He was a key figure in the formation of the Essex Archaeological Society, and in the exploration of Roman Colchester.

Winifred Lamb completed Part 2 of the Classical Tripos at Newnham College in 1917. She initially went to work in a military hospital but in December 1917 she was invited to attend an interview for 'an interesting job' by the wife of the diplomat, George Young. She was offered a place in Room 40, part of Naval Intelligence based in the Admiralty. She worked alongside Lt-Commander J.D. Beazley RNVR. They were able to attend the London sales, and in one instance they jointly purchased an Athenian amphora that was presented to the Ashmolean Museum. Beazley introduced her to Sir Sydney Cockerell, Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Lamb was invited to become Honorary Keeper of Greek Antiquities. In April 1940 she was approached, at the prompting of Sir Leonard Woolley, to join the BBC. From 1941 she worked in the Balkans section, and in the spring of 1942 she moved to the Turkish language section where she was responsible for preparing regular monitoring reports. This was a crucial period when the Allies were seeking to maintain Turkey's neutrality. In October 1944 she was seriously injured during a V1 rocket attack. She returned to work in late April 1945, monitoring the broadcasts to Turkey from Moscow. Lamb resigned from the BBC in February 1946 and joined a group of scholars, including John Garstang, to create what was initially called The Anglo-Turkish Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.

Professor David Gill will discuss the work of John Disney in this lecture. The memorable exclamation ‘Yes, wonderful things’ was uttered by Howard Carter when he peered into the tomb of Tutankhamun. The origins of modern academic archaeology in the British Isles can be traced to Dr John Disney (1779-1857). In 1850 he donated his ‘valuable collection of ancient marbles and statuary’ to the University of Cambridge for display in the Fitzwilliam Museum. The following year he offered endowments to  establish the Disney Professorship of Archaeology. The gift and benefaction allow the exploration of two key themes, firstly, the formation of classical collections in the 18th and 19th centuries; and, secondly, the creation of an academic discipline that would emerge out of antiquarianism. Disney, whose family came from Lincolnshire, lived at The Hyde, near Ingatestone, Essex. The collection was formed by the republicans, Thomas Hollis and Thomas Brand Hollis. Disney also contributed to the transformation of archaeological studies in East Anglia. He was the first President of the Essex Archaeological Society and he helped to create the Chelmsford and Essex Museum.

Codebreakers and Groundbreakers :Curator's Introduction.
A pioneering and interdisciplinary exhibition, 'Codebreakers and Groundbreakers' will bring together, for the first time, the remarkable intellectual achievements and parallel narratives of two groups of ‘codebreakers’ working at the same time, but independently: those involved in breaking the Second World War codes and those who deciphered the ancient script of Linear B – Europe’s earliest comprehensible writing system.

Paper presented at the  one-day Colloquium in honour of Dr Lucilla Burn, Keeper of Antiquities and Assistant Director, Collections, who retired from her position at the Fitzwilliam in December 2016. The Colloquium was held at King's College Cambridge, Tuesday, 29 November 2016.
Organisers: Helen Strudwick, Julie Dawson, Anastasia Christophilopoulou and Paul Cartledge

Dr John Disney is best known as the donor of the Cambridge University chair of archaeology that bears his name, and the 'Disney Marbles' that form part of the classical collection in the Fitzwilliam Museum. Disney inherited the Grand Tour collection formed by Thomas Hollis and Thomas Brand-Hollis and displayed at The Hyde near Ingatestone in Essex. Disney played an active role in the Chelmsford Philosophical Society and helped to create the Chelmsford Museum. He also collected finds from Essex including Latin inscriptions from the cemetery outside the Balkerne Gate at Colchester.

The Fitzwilliam Museum holds material brought back by some of the early nineteenth-century travellers to Greece including Edward Daniel Clarke and William Martin Leake. However, it was not until the later nineteenth century, with the founding of such organisations as the British School of Athens and the Cyprus Exploration Fund, that the Museum's collections started to be enriched through material excavated or otherwise acquired in Greece by archaeologists and other students. This article maps the impact of the emerging discipline of archaeology on the Fitzwilliam's collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also demonstrates how the Museum profited from the close connections between students, archaeologists and museum officers of the period.