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Collecting History of the JCB Library

Featured Items

Detail of a printed page shows text in Latin.

Christoforo Columbus, de insulis inventis, 1493

1493
Detail from a colored manuscript map shows the world labeled with text in Latin.

De geometriae principiis ad sphaerae astronomicae noticiam neces sariis. caput primum…

Glareanus
1513
Detail of a printed text in Greek and manuscript notations of triangles and Greek text written in the margins.

Opera omnia

Aristotle
1495-1499
Detail of a blockbook shows woodcut illustration of biblical scene in the garden of eden. A woman holds an apple and is talking to a large snake. Text in Latin also visible.

Biblia pauperum

1460-1470
Detail of a woodcut, hand-colored map depicting North and South America. Visible details include Cuba, written as "CVBA", a compass rose, and text in Italian.

La carta uniuersale della terra firma & isole delle Indie occidẽtali…

1534
Detail of a printed book shows title page with English text "The English Pilot. The Fourth Book describing the West India Navigation, from Hudson's Bay to the River Amazones" in red ink.

The English pilot, Book 4

William Fisher; John Thornton
1745
Detail of a map shows text in Latin.

Americae et Proximar Regionum Orae Descriptio

Giovanni Battista Mazza
1589
Detail of a frontispiece shows four animals grouped between two pillars. In the background, castles sit on either side of a harbor where ships wait. Text in Latin.

Biblia Sacra Hebraice, Chaldaice, Graece, & Latine Philippi II

1573

Related

colored plan of the city of Antwerp, Belgium

Melchor Pérez de Soto: A Book Collector Faces the Inquisition

Summer - Fall 2011
printed text in Hebrew

Jews and the Americas: 165 Years of Collecting at the JCB

Fall 2010 - Winter 2011
political cartoon depicting a funeral procession

Pamphlet Wars: Arguments on Paper from the Age of Revolutions

Fall 2015 - Winter 2016
detail of a map

How deep are the JCB's connections to Mexico?

February 15, 2019
detail of a page from a Mexican incunable book printed between 1539 to 1600
In House

64 Mexican incunables and counting

May 5, 2018

Ptolemy's Exquisite Geographia

February 6, 2018

See Also

History of Knowledge / Intellectual History / Philosophy

Business, Trade, and Economic History