Background:

The prints shown here portray the colleges in Oxford and Cambridge.  While they are from a folio published in England in 1963, these color lithographs are based on hand-colored engravings from the 1800s featuring illustrations by some of the leading landscape artists of that time including Mackenzie, Pugin and Westall.

As noted in the introduction to the folio, the colleges "began as scholastic guilds - often known as Studium Generale - first in Italy and then in France.  These guilds had a main purpose - self-protection against the townsmen of the city in which the scholarium has been formed.  It must be remembered that the students of each scholarium were mainly foreign and were drawn from many countries and their lives in these foreign cities were at times hazardous".

Each print is accompanied by a copy of the notes on the college authored by Oliver St. John Heaton.