THE WS SOCIETY ONLINE EXHIBITION 2024
Alexander Gordon, opera singer and antiquarian
(London: published by subscription, 1726)
Alexander Gordon trained in Italy as an opera singer, and it was there that he fell amongst antiquaries. It is his writings on the Roman inheritance in Scotland for which he is now best remembered.
Gordon had borrowed a copy of Sir Robert Sibbald’s Historical Enquiries from James Anderson in 1723. Sibbald had seen the failure of the Romans to extend their dominance to Scotland as a matter of fortune and circumstance. Gordon took a very different view: Scotland, he felt, was a nation that had specifically and deliberately succeeded in driving off Roman occupation in those places where it had been (temporarily) established. Freedom from Roman conquest was a matter of Scottish puissance and a reason for national pride.
The Signet Library holds two copies of the Itinerarium, one on large paper.
Further Reading
John Malcolm Bulloch The House of Gordon (Aberdeen 1903-1912)
- Setting The Scene : Lawyers and Intellectuals Before 1722