The Edward Worth Library, housed in Dr Steevens’ Hospital, Dublin has launched their newest annual online exhibition: ‘Birds at the Edward Worth Library’: This online exhibition, is accompanied by a smaller display case exhibition in the Worth Library itself and all are welcome to come and see the items on display during Green Week or at another time during the year. To find out more and to visit this beautiful library see www.edwardworthlibrary.ie.
Dr Edward Worth (1676–1733), an early eighteenth-century Dublin physician, was fascinated by medicine, science, and books as material objects and our ‘Birds’ exhibition brings together all three of these interests.
He was clearly obsessed by birds for he owned the most important works of his time: L’histoire de la nature des oyseaux, avec leurs descriptions (Paris, 1555) by the French naturalist, Pierre Belon (1517?–1564); the encyclopaedic Historiae animalium … (Frankfurt, 1620), of the Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner (1516–1565); and the enormous 13-volumes of all aspects of natural history which were produced by the Italian naturalist Ulisse Aldrovandi (1522–1605), three of which focused on birds. To these treasures Worth added perhaps one of the most important books on birds of all time: Francis Willughby’s Ornithologiæ libri tres (London, 1676), which revolutionized the classification of birds. And these are not his only texts on birds for swooping through his many volumes on natural history are birds from Europe, Asia and the New World, the latter a huge source of interest in the early modern period. As the ‘Birds’ exhibition makes clear, Worth’s texts act as a barometer of climate change, pointing to species either in decline or are now extinct. To find out more and to visit this beautiful library see www.edwardworthlibrary.ie.
