Introduction to the Collections

The holdings of the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, some 65,000 volumes, range from medieval documents to first editions of twentieth century authors.

The collections consist primarily of printed books and pamphlets, dating from the 1470s on, and include about 100 incunabula. There are individual books which are rare, and groups of books and pamphlets whose importance lies in the fact that they form a collection of related materials. Rare books include those selected for significant provenance, the quality of the text, historical value, physical features such as printing, binding, maps, and illustrations, and date of publication. All books printed before 1801, American publications before 1840, and American Catholic publications before 1901 are included. The sixteenth century/STC collection numbers over 1,400 volumes printed in the sixteenth century or listed in Wing's Short-Title Catalogue of English books, 1475-1700.

There is a small collection of over 100 manuscripts, dating from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries. Included are papal bulls, books of hours, monumental choir books from the Sistine Chapel, and a nineteenth century commonplace book. The most recent acquisition is a fifteenth century copy of Thomas Aquinas's Scriptum super Quarto Libro Sententiarum Magistri Petri Lombardi. The major manuscript collections of the university library are located in the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives.

The most significant special collection in the department is the Clementine Library, a portion of the library of the Albani family, whose most prestigious member was Pope Clement XI (1700-21). The large collection of Catholic Americana includes nineteenth century publications, pamphlets, parish histories, devotional books, and catechisms. Other collections include the Connolly Irish Collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century books and pamphlets; the Richard N. Foley Collection of modern literature; the Order of Malta collections; the Michael Jenkins Collection on the history of Maryland; and the Monumental Brasses Collection.

Other important holdings of the department include Bibles and liturgical books, writings of the Fathers of the Church, and works of church history and theology from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Books about books and botany are also well represented.

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