About this collection
The Digital Ferdinand platform originated as part of a wider project called Jewish Country Houses, which is a collaborative project to explore the relationships between Jewish history, art history and heritage culture.
This site presents a number of digitised manuscripts relating to the writings of Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild or the wider Rothschild lineage, exploring them in depth by offering curated descriptive annotations to the text as well as accompanying essays by researchers and curators. This comprises annotations and identifications of significant people, events, places and collected objects.
Amongst these manuscripts we include Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild’s Reminiscences, which details his memories of early life and Waddesdon Manor’s inception, and his Red Book – a personal catalogue of Waddesdon Manor’s treasures and architecture. It is intended that the information and context provided though this digitised content will illuminate the texts for students and scholars, as well as for the wider public.
Thirteen volumes of Ferdinand’s writings, two volumes of catalogues of his book collection and three key personal documents, including the Waddesdon Visitors’ Book, have previously been made available on the Waddesdon website using ISSUU page-turning software. Selected available texts with annotations are presented below, and it is expected that further manuscripts will be added over time.
