Giovanni Battista Pozzo (1670–1752)
Rome, 1724

This medallion was commissioned by Middleton as a riposte to the Librarian at the Vatican, who had claimed only to have heard of Cambridge as a school for the preparation of Oxford students when Middleton visited in 1724. Pozzo depicted Middleton in classical style; on the reverse is a table with open books and bookshelves, presumably a depiction of the Library. An illustration of the medallion was included on the title-page of Middleton’s catalogue of his collection of antiquities. The Library also has several bronze versions of the medallion; the Victoria and Albert Museum has a copy in ivory and the design was later issued by Wedgwood.

Given by Sir John E. Dolben, 1818