Using John Nidd's annotated books in the Wren Library to reassess his contribution to John Ray's Catalogus (1660)

Abstract

In his Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (1660), John Ray acknowledged the help of his senior colleague at Trinity College, John Nidd, to whom he said the reader was chiefly indebted for the observations included in the work. Many of Nidd's surviving books in the Wren Library, Trinity College, Cambridge, have a characteristic suite of marginal annotations. Comparison of the observations in the Catalogus with Nidd's annotations in his copies of Bennet's Tabidorum theatrum (1656), Hofmann's De medicamentis officinalibus (1646) and Lauremberg's Apparatus plantarius primus (1632) and Horticultura (1631) show that most of the passages cited by Ray are amongst those marked by Nidd. By contrast, Nidd's copy of Charleton's Spiritus gorgonicus, vi sua saxipara exutus (1650), a book cited once by Ray, is not annotated. This evidence is consistent with Ray's account of Nidd's involvement in the Catalogus and does not support the view of Charles Raven, Ray's biographer, who sought to minimize Nidd's role. Annotations in a copy of Camerarius's Hortus medicus et philosophicus (1588) from the library of James Duport, another of Ray's Trinity colleagues, also correspond to passages cited by Ray and may have been made by Duport himself, suggesting that he too may have been involved in compiling the observations in the Catalogus.