Elias Ashmole

Elias Ashmole (May 23, 1617 – May 18, 1692) was an antiquarian, collector, politician and student of astrology and alchemy. He supported the royalist side during the English Civil War, and at the restoration of Charles II he was rewarded with several lucrative offices. Throughout his life he was an avid collector of curiosities and other artifacts, many of which he acquired from the traveller, botanist and collector John Tradescant, and most of which he donated to Oxford University to create the Ashmolean Museum. He also donated his library and priceless manuscript collection to Oxford.

External links

• Two letters to Elias Ashmole from Sir Thomas Browne (1658 and 1674) about Arthur Dee available at Wikisource
• Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum (1652) from the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image at the University of Pennsylvania Library.
• Examples of items from the Tradesant collection (p. 1, p. 2) from the Ashmolean Museum.
• {{gutenberg author | id=Elias_Ashmole | name=Elias Ashmole}}