James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell
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James Patrick Ronaldson Lyell (1871–1948) was a solicitor, author, book collector, and bibliographer. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and at University College London.[1]
Lyell was admitted solicitor in 1894 eventually becoming senior partner of Gard, Lyell & Co.[2]
He began to collect books in 1889 and was especially interested in Spanish book illustration.[3] He wrote a biography of Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros, archbishop of Toledo,[4] and Early Book Illustration in Spain.[5] He was interested in books of known provenance and gathering together the standard texts of the Middle Ages.
When Brian Twyne, Keeper of the Archives from 1634-1644, was commemorated in 1934, Lyell donated a copy of Twyne's Antiquitatis academiae Oxoniensis apologia, giving it to then Keeper, Strickland Gibson.[6]
Lyell acquired medieval manuscripts and bequeathed 100 to the Bodleian Library which have been listed in the Catalogue of the Collection of Medieval Manuscripts Bequeathed to the Bodleian Library, Oxford by James P. R. Lyell.[7][8] [9]
