SNLS Photo Competition

Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh is famous for the legend of Greyfriars Bobby, the faithful dog who is said to have remained at his master's grave for more than a decade in the nineteenth century. Its graveyard is the last resting place of many distinguished residents of Edinburgh, and more recently has become known as the inspiration for the names of several characters in the series of Harry Potter novels. One illustrious figure buried in Greyfriars kirkyard is the poet and reformer George Buchanan, who needs little introduction to students of neo-Latin literature.

The subject of the photograph is a nineteenth-century stained-glass window in the church itself, commemorating Buchanan; a memorial tablet to Buchanan's editor Thomas Ruddiman is nearby, on the same wall. In addition to a rather severe-looking portrait of Buchanan, based on the portrait of 1581 attributed to Arnold von Bronkhorst (or on a later copy), the tripartite window features an array of Scottish and Buchanan family heraldry and an open book with lines from Buchanan's Latin dramaIephthes (Cui vera virtus peperit aeternum decus, "for whom his true virtue has won eternal glory") and his paraphrase of Psalm 112 (<nec dies> Suprema famam condet eius invido | Oblivii silentio, "<Nor> will the last <day> bury his renown in the envious silence of oblivion"). Pride of place beneath Buchanan's portrait is given to lines from Joseph Scaliger's tribute to Buchanan,Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia limes: | Romani eloquii Scotia finis erit ("Scotland had been the frontier of the Roman Empire; Scotland will be the end-point of Roman [i.e. Latin] eloquence"). The presence of quotations from no fewer than three works of neo-Latin literature suggested the window as a suitable entry for the SNLS photo competition!