Folium Librorum Vitae Deditum. Jaargang 5

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The John Rylands Library
by Edward Robertson¹⁾

The great libraries of the world have in general long years of development behind them. Occasionally by lavish gifts or bequests, but more usually by slow accretions, their contents have grown in volume and value as the years have passed. But with surprising suddenness the John Rylands Library, over 50 years ago, thrust its way into the select group of national libraries in this country and, according to some who are competent to judge, it occupies a place in the inner circle. ‘For us in France,’ said a member of the staff of the Bibliothèque Nationale, ‘there are three great libraries in England, the British Museum, the Bodleian and the John Rylands.’ How has this, which almost seems a modern miracle, come about?

In the year 1888 John Rylands, a prosperous Manchester merchant, died, leaving to his widow a fortune of several million pounds. Because of her husband's private interests, in which religion played a significant part, she resolved to erect as a memorial to him a great library in which theology would be a prime interest. Provision was also to be made for humane studies in general, but science and medicine were excluded. She wished the building to stand in the centre of Manchester where her husband's business life had brought him great pleasure and satisfaction. The narrow island site ultimately selected was unfortunately not one calculated to display to advantage the architectural features of the magnificent building, designed by the famous architect, Basil Champneys, the interior grandeur of which evoked the ecstatic praises of the President of the Royal Academy on a recent visit. With no expense spared Mrs. Rylands saw in the result the complete fulfilment of her dreams. It has been said of it, ‘As a building it is a tribute to the craftsmanship of the masons, the sculptors, the metal workers and the woodcarvers. It has solidity, dignity, and solemnity.’

A dramatic change in the scope of the Library as originally planned took place whilst the building was in course of erection. The famous Althorp Library, largely created and shaped by the second Earl Spencer, which the great French bibliographer Renouard

1) Reprinted from ‘Books’ no. 303, 1956, with the kind permission of the author and publisher (The National Book League).

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described as ‘the most beautiful and richest private collection in Europe,’ came on the market in 1892. Many great libraries, acquired for the purpose, had gone to its creation, e.g. the peerless collection of the earliest printed editions of the Greek and Latin classics belonging to the Hungarian nobleman Count Reviczky; the library of the Duke of Cassano-Serra with early printed editions of the Neapolitan, Milanese and rarer Italian provincial presses; that of Stanesby Alchorne for early English books (Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, etc.), that of Remondini for Aldines; and others. A remarkable feature of the Althorp library was the purity and perfection of its books. The price paid by Mrs. Rylands for this superb library was approximately a quarter of a million pounds, a cheap price at the time and only a fraction of its present-day market value. Then in 1901, the year after the Library was opened, she purchased for a comparable sum the wonderful manuscript collection of the Bibliotheca Lindesiana of the Earls of Crawford. In this way some 6,000 superb manuscripts, both Eastern and Western, came to the Library. Mrs. Rylands during her lifetime (she died in 1908) added greatly to its wealth both in printed books and manuscripts, strengthening particularly its now famous papyrus collection.

It is quite impossible to give here more than a very brief indication of the great wealth of the Library both in early printed books and manuscripts. Of early printed books it has about 3,000 incunabula, more than 60 per cent of which date from before 1480. Amongst its eight block-prints is the famous St. Christopher wood-cut, the earliest piece of European printing with an undisputed date (1423). Amongst its 15 block-books is the earliest of all, an Apocalypse produced not later than 1440. It has the Letters of Indulgence of Pope Nicholas V in the two editions of 1454 and 1455. It has fine copies of both the ‘36-line’ (Pfister) and the ‘42-line’ (Mazarin) Bibles with which the names of Gutenberg, Fust and Schoeffer are associated. Only four other libraries in the world can claim to possess both editions. In the Library, too, is the Mainz Psalter of Fust and Schoeffer in all three editions, the first two on vellum. Indeed, of the printed works associated with the names of Gutenberg, Fust and Schoeffer, the Library has 43. Of copies of works from the press of Pfister of Bamberg (into whose hands passed the type used in the ‘36-line’ Bible), of which not more than a score all told appear to have survived, the Library has four and part of a

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BLOCK-BOOK. THE APOCALYPSE. Netherlandish, c. 1435.
A Page from one of the earliest block-books of which the only copy of the first edition is in the John Rylands Library.

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fifth, the only copies in this country. Of the 51 surviving works from the press of the first printers in Italy, Sweynheym and Pannartz, the Library has 49, the largest number in any collection in this country. Amongst the 40 works it has of Ulrich Han, the second printer in Rome, is the only perfect copy of the Meditationes of Turrecremata, the first illustrated book to be printed in Italy. Of the Venetian presses the Library has copies of the only three works known to have issued from the press of John of Speyer. Here, too, are numerous examples of the work of Wendelin of Speyer and the Frenchman, Nicholas Jenson, with his specially beautiful type. The early presses of Rome, Venice, Naples, Milan, Florence, Brescia and other Italian cities are strongly represented. Here is to be found the first edition of the Il Decamerone of Boccaccio, printed by Valdarfer in 1471. It is the only perfect copy extant, for the edition, it is alleged, was largely committed to the flames by the Florentines through the teaching of Savonarola. Amongst works from the press of Friburger, Gering and Crantz, the first printers in France, is a beautiful copy of the Epistolae of Barzizius, the first book they printed in 1470 at the Sorbonne. Of the Aldine press of Venice founded by Aldus Manutius in 1494, which operated till 1598, the Library possesses over 800 copies, an almost complete series of its publications and the finest in existence. A special room has been set apart for this collection. Examples of strong series and rare editions in the Early Printed Books room could be multiplied. For Germany the Library can add 130, and for Italy over 300, titles to Proctor's Index to the Early Printed Books in the British Museum, which takes account also of those in the Bodleian Library. As evidence of the wealth of early printed books in the Library it can be recalled that on the occasion of a conference of the Classical Association in Manchester, it was able to exhibit the first printed edition of each of the 50 principal Greek and Latin writers, including the only known copy of the Batrachomyomachia, printed at Brescia by Thomas Ferrandus in 1474. It has the distinction of being the first printed Greek classic. The Library has copies of 17 editions of Virgil printed before 1480. Its early Ciceros printed before 1501 number 75, of which 64 are before 1480. Their importance lies in the fact that many of the manuscripts from which these editions were printed have since perished.

Not only on account of its unrivalled collection of early printed books but also because of their wonderful condition, the Library

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TURRECREMATA (JOHANNES), CARDINAL. MEDITATIONES. Rome, Ulrich Han, 1467
The first page from the first illustrated book printed in Italy, of which the only perfect copy is in the John Rylands Library.

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has not inaptly been described as ‘England's treasure house of early printing.’

There is no space left to tell of the treasures of the manuscript rooms in which some 50 languages and cultures are represented-the rich Arabic and Persian collections, the extensive papyrus collection with Egyptian, Greek, Coptic and Arabic texts. Here is to be found the earliest known manuscript of the New Testament-the famous St. John fragment, and Greek fragments of Deuteronomy of the second century B.C. Amongst the Eastern collections are the Chinese (8,000 pen) and Japanese (1,000) and the Rhys Davids Collection of Pali, Sinhalese and Burmese manuscripts along with lesser known tongues such as the Mo-So (Na-khi) and the Indonesian group.

Among the Western manuscripts are important early texts and calligraphic treasures from the great writing schools of Europe, many encased in sumptuous metal and ivory bindings adorned with semi-precious stones; the Library's mediaeval jewelled bindings, in fact, are ranked third among the world's collections. First-class examples of mediaeval illumination are here in plenty. The manuscripts represent a wide variety of subjects: Biblical, liturgical and patristic texts, hagiography, history, theology, philosophy, law, etc. The historian for example, will find the earliest copy of the Leges Anglorum (c. 1150), the earliest extant Sarum missal (thirteenth century), royal wardrobe books (thirteenth to sixteenth centuries), monastic cartularies, no fewer than 15 Wycliffite manuscripts, and Latin, English, French and Spanish chronicles.

For later periods there is an even larger quantity of material, including extensive collections of historical, political, literary and private correspondence (both French and English), business papers (many relating to the early cotton trade), heraldic and legal records, and historical and antiquarian collections formed by well-known scholars, the largest groups of which concern the history of Parliament, the Moravians, the Civil War, and local history; among the correspondence are letters and papers of the Johnsonian circle (3,000), of Viscount Melville, of Dickens and Mrs. Gaskell, and other well-known figures. The Library's autograph collection is a particularly valuable one. Much other correspondence (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries), mainly political, social and private, is housed with the various family collections in the Library's three Charter Rooms. There also are stored

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many thousands of deeds (royal, ecclesiastical, and private), manorial records and allied documents, and the muniments of several Cheshire, Lancashire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire families.

The foregoing is but a brief sketch of the John Rylands Library and its priceless contents. It may be sufficient, however, to afford the reader a hasty glimpse of one of the world's great libraries.