Sir Henry Savile (1549-1622), though remembered most frequently as a mathematician, was also historian, antiquarian, and classical scholar, who as a man of learning won the admiration of Scaliger. Born at Bradley in Yorkshire, he came up to B.N.C. about 1561, but migrated to Merton as a Fellow in 1565. He rapidly distinguished himself in mathematics and Greek, but after 1578 he spent some years abroad and at court before returning to Oxford to become warden of Merton in 1585.

A persistent courtier, he also sought for and at length in 1596 obtained the provostship of Eton. His eight-volume folio edition of st. Chrysostom (1610-13)-to which the Old Catalogue alludes in describing Savile as 'sapientia excultissimus, eloquens, pius, et Chrysostomi sui omnino persimilis'-was his greatest literary undertaking, but it had little success, as a French edition, thought to be pirated, was produced almost simultaneously. His foundation in Oxford of the professorships of geometry and astronomy was completed by the gift of a mathematical chest, endowed with £100, and a mathematical library, of which the manuscript portion is catalogued below. In this Savile was no doubt encouraged by his friendship with Bodley, of whose will he was one of the 'overseers'.