The Rare Book and Special Collections Division
(RBSCD) is composed of over 100 named collections, many of
which have sixteenth-century holdings. Perhaps the most notable
is the Rosenwald Collection, which includes over 800 illustrated
books printed in the sixteenth century in Western Europe.
This collection is particularly strong in medical, scientific,
and architectural illustration, represented in German, Italian,
and French language imprints. These early printed book collections
are complemented by large holdings of contemporary history,
travel, and literature.
Other named collections in the division include the Vocabulario
della Crusca Collection, a grouping of books and broadsides
that reflects attempts to standardize the Italian language
and to development of a national literature. The Italian
materials are complemented by the work of French and Dutch
rhetoricians who were attempting to produce the same results.
The vernacular Bible collection is composed of hundreds of
sixteenth-century editions, which are supported by collections
of breviaries, books of hours, and liturgical books. Closely
associated with the bible collection are the Reformation
and Luther Collections.
The RBSCD also has significant holdings documenting the
age of discovery. Books from the Vollbehr Collection, the
Thacher Collection, the Bachelder Collection, the Peter Force
Collection, the Henry Harrisse Collection, and the Hans Peter
Kraus Collection of Sir Francis Drake, primarily focus on
Columbus and the new world. The Library’s holdings
also included significant groups of books on the exploration
of the pacific, China and India; and collections of books
of travel around the Mediterranean world, the Middle East
and overland travels to the Far East. A collection recently
given to the Library by Jay Kislak contains books, manuscripts,
paintings, and artifacts documenting the history of Florida,
Mexico, and Central America.
Other collections of sixteenth-century books in RBSCD include
the Bitting Collection of Gastronomy; the early printed books
collection, devoted to fine printing in Europe 1500-1520;
the English Printing Collection from 1520-1640; the sixteenth-century
book binding collection; the Gryphius collection of books
printed in Lyon; and the Spanish American imprint collection
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
The Library’s Geography and Map Division (G&M)
is responsible for the most comprehensive collection in the
world of cartography and it includes five million maps, 80,000
atlases, a significant collection of early globes and globe
gores, and 6,000 reference works. Its collections of atlases
include 37 different editions of Ptolemy’s Geographica
printed before 1600, three manuscript portolan atlases including
a world atlas drawn in 1544, and 19 portolan charts, depicting
the Mediterranean, South American, and world navigation routes.
In addition the holdings of the G&M Division document
the development of the city atlas and the town history during
the sixteenth century. Its holdings also include numerous
atlases by Lafreyer, Ortelius, Mercator, Gerard de Jode,
Bougereau, Saxon and Schoner.
The Law Library is separate from all other custodial units
at the Library and it reports directly to the Librarian of
Congress. Its sixteenth-century holdings are particularly
strong in five areas. First is the collection of Consilia,
publications that address questions of law raised during
actual litigation. The collection includes 450 titles printed
during the sixteenth century. They were mostly written by
Italian scholars who were experts in Roman law but also include
arguments by German, Spanish, French, Dutch, and Portuguese
jurists. Closely associated with the Consilia is the collection
of French Coutume or common law, that includes 500 titles
printed before 1700, most of which were printed in the sixteenth
century. This collection also contains French language examples.
The Law Library’s collections on Canon Law and Roman
Law are also significant. The holdings include over 500 sixteenth-century
titles documenting the evolution of ecclesiastical law of
the Roman church. The sixteenth-century Roman Law collections
consist of nearly 1300 titles, including pre-Justianian Roman
law sources, many early editions of Justinian’s Corpus
Juris, medieval sources of Roman Law, glossed editions of
Roman texts, and commentaries and later interpretative works.
Finally, the Law Library contains an Early English Statutes
collection consisting of 250 separate statues, abridgements,
and sessions laws printed before 1620, many of which are
recorded in Beale’s Bibliography of English Law Books,
published 1926.
The Manuscript Division (MD) includes three significant
collections of sixteenth-century material, all of which are
related to Central and South America. The Hans P. Kraus Collection
of Spanish American documents includes 150 items which reflect
the social structure and the living condition of the native
populations, the activities of the Spanish Church in New
Spain, and the legal system and inquisition in Mexico. The
G. R. G. Conway Collection of Mexican history contains 46
volumes of original documents, maps and imprints, many of
which document the condition of the English in Mexico and
their experiences with the Inquisition. There are also documents
on the Jews who came to Mexico before the Inquisition and
their experiences once they became the subject of investigation
by the legal tribunal. Finally, the Harkness Collection of
Mexico and Peru documents 200 years of Spanish control in
those two states. The Mexican manuscripts (over 3000 folio
pages) are related to the Cortes and the affairs of the Cortes
family, with many documents relating to the Cortes-Avila
conspiracy, and the judicial proceedings of the Inquisition
during the 16th century. The Peruvian manuscript collection
(nearly 1500 folio pages) includes provincial documents sent
from Peru to Spain, vice regal decrees, and numerous documents
relating to Francesco Pizzaro and Diego de Almagro key figures
in the Spanish conquest of Peru.
The holdings of the Music Division are well known for their
scope and complexity. Its sixteenth-century collections include
numerous early theoretical works that begin with the 1504
edition of Petrucci’s Harmonae, in addition to collections
of musical treatises derived from the manuscript period that
recorded various classical works on the subject. The Music
Division holdings also includes a significant group of chant
books, choir books, antiphonaries and graduals, and, from
later in the century, a large collection of madrigals printed
all over Europe. The collection also includes a series of
motets from the 1580s which are rare engravings that include
musical notation as part of the design.
The African & Middle East Division (AMED) also has sixteenth-century
holdings, including the Mansuri Collection, which documents
the legal and social aspects of Islamic society during the
mid- to late-sixteenth century. It includes nearly 200 manuscripts
and 1000 printed books. The AMED also includes thousands
of later works, often reprints and interpretative material
documenting Islamic society from 1500 to the middle of the
seventeenth century. These works are often written in European
languages and were sent to the Library of Congress as part
of exchange programs that began in the mid-nineteenth century.
More detailed information, as well as links to the Library’s
digital collections can be found at the Library of Congress
website: www.loc.gov
For direct contacts with various Divisions contact:
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Daniel De Simone
(ddes@loc.gov)
Geography and Map Division, James Flatness (jfla@loc.gov)
Law Library, Meredith Shedd Driskal (mdri@loc.gov)
Manuscript Division, Leonard Bruno (lbro@loc.gov)
Music Division, Ray White (rwhi@loc.gov)
Africa & Middle East Division, Chris Murphy (cmur@loc.gov)
Pindar,
Ulrich. Epiphanie medicorum. Nuremberg, 1506.