John’s College in Annapolis, president of the Municipal Arts Society of Baltimore from 1935 to 1970, Mr.

The Iron Age of England covers the period 800BC-AD43, ending on the arrival of the Roman armies.

Gordon made the first purchase for his extraordinary collection in 1923 from a Parisian bookseller’s stall on the Seine.

It was a first edition of the , an appropriate beginning for an impeccable library of French Renaissance volumes, although the account of Montaigne’s travels in 1580-81 was not published until 1774. Gordon acquired all the major editions of Montaigne’s published in the author’s lifetime and the works of virtually every important writer of the period: Ronsard, Du Bellay and their fellow members of the Pléïade group, Estienne Jodelle, Rémy Belleau, and Pontus de Tyard.

[top] The period of time characterised by an increase in bronze working, covering the period 2600-700BC in the UK.

The Bronze Age follows on from the Neolithic period and is followed by the Iron Age.