Clarendon, Sheldonian, Old Ashmolean and Exeter College on Broad Street

This is the view, roughly, from one of the three entrances into Blackwell's, bookseller to Oxford, across Broad Street (which was, times past, the town garbage ditch outside the city walls). The Clarendon Building, on the left, was built (c. 1713) to house the Oxford University Press, which had been in the top floor of the building next door - in the center here - the Sheldonian Theatre, an early effort of Christopher Wren's. (Between these two are hints of the upper stories of the Bodleian Library). Further to the right is the Old Ashmolean, now the Museum of the History of Science, and beyond that a bit of Exeter College. One could go on about all of these buildings, all at the heart of the early modern University, but I'll just let the names tempt you. Again, the picture's my point - this is a standard prospect of monumental Oxford. If you could get a little closer, you'd likely find yourself bemused by the series of busts that top the columns in front of the theater, all late reproductions of comically lugubrious miens - of whom no one apparently knows anymore. I've come to think of them fondly as the dynasty of ice cream.

Here's one of them (sometime I'll post the whole line):