36                            Francis T. P. Plimpton

Boccaccio's Fall of Princes (ca. 1470). Noteworthy, also, are
seven vellum leaves of a Coptic manuscript of the late 9th century,
a gift to the donor from one of his business partners who found
them on an expedition up the Nile. Scholars pronounced them a
Coptic translation of a discouise ascribed to St. Cyiil of Jerusalem,
the missing concluding poition of Morgan Library Coptic manu¬
script 594. Mr. Plimpton suggested to the elder Morgan that all
the leaves should be brought together, and pointed out that he
could not properly part with a gift; the hint was never taken.

Selecting these few items for special mention has not been easy.
There are more rhan 13,000 separate woiks in the Plimpton Li¬
brary, including more than 300 medieval and renaissance manu¬
scripts, nearly a hundred 15th-century printed books, many
works written 01 published in England in the i6th and eaily 17 th
centuiies, and textbooks of every sort that seived the teaching
piocess into the middle 18oo's. It took my father more than sixty
yeais to assemble the Libiaiy; it now stands as his living memorial
to Columbia University, and Columbia's living memorial to him.