
1911 - The Rhodes Building - Oxford, UK
Posted by:
dtrebilc
N 51° 45.146 W 001° 15.225
30U E 620536 N 5734947
This chronogram is formed from an inscription under a statue of Cecil Rhodes on the building for which he donated money.
Waymark Code: WM121ZR
Location: South East England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/05/2020
Views: 9
The building is a Historic England Grade II Listed Building and below are some details extracted from the
website.
"The Rhodes Building forms the north range of St Mary's (or 'the Third') Quadrangle at Oriel College and was built to house undergraduates and Fellows of the college. It was built between 1909 and 1911 to the designs of Basil Champneys (1842-1935) in a bold Jacobethan style and remains largely unaltered except for modifications to the south-east wing in 1981. In 2010 it provides both student and office accommodation...
...The level above, flanked by paired, un-fluted Corinthian columns, displays a statue of Rhodes himself, under a shell canopy propped by barley-sugar columns. At his feet a relief inscription reads E[X]: LARGA: MVNIFICENTIA CAECILII:RHODES, ie 'Out of the splendid generosity of Cecil Rhodes', the raised letters (here in bold) forming the laborious chronogram LMVIICICILIID (ie, reshuffled, MDCCCLLVIIIIII, ie 1911)."
The website has details of the Latin phrase and the digits used to form the date, but it is not actually clear exactly which letters are used. The actual layout of the words is as follows...
E:
LARGA:
MVN
IF
ICENT
IA
CAE
CILII RHO
DES
The first word should be EX (out of) but as the X is not needed for the Chronogram it has been shortened to be just E: