UCLA Library Department of Special Collections
The collection of the publications of Aldo Manuzio, his family, and imitators was begun in 1961 during the tenure of Chancellor Franklin D. Murphy. It has become the foremost Aldine collection in North America and is comparable with the Spencer collection at the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester. The UCLA collection contains more than 750 items listed in A.A. Renouard's Annales de l'imprimerie des Alde (Paris: Jules Renouard, 1834). The department has nearly 80 percent of the books printed by the elder Aldo. A checklist of holdings, with an index in Renouard order, is available on this website. The department is also publishing a bibliographically detailed Catalogue of the Ahmanson-Murphy Aldine Collection at UCLA. Examples of manuscripts supporting this collection include Federico Commandino's manuscript translation of Archimedes, which Paolo Manuzio used to set his 1558 edition, and a holograph contract between Paolo and the Holy See, giving him exclusive publishing rights for the Catholic church.
The Ahmanson-Murphy Collection of Early Italian Printing was established to expand research holdings printed during the period of the Aldine collection. More than 300 printers are represented, with more comprehensive holdings of Antonio Blado of Rome, the Giunti family of Florence and Venice, and Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari of Venice. The collection preserves nearly 300 15th century Italian books, exclusive of the Aldines. More than twenty were produced by Nicolas Jenson and ten or more each by Johann von Köln and Johann Manthen, Cristoforo de' Pensi, and Erhard Ratdolt. The department periodically produces a checklist of holdings, with an index by printer, which is available upon request.
Notable among the manuscripts supporting the Italian printing collection and classical, medieval, and renaissance studies are the Orsini Family papers, dating from the 14th century, and the Giunti inventory, ca. 1600 (cf. Martin Lowry's Book Prices in Renaissance Venice: The Stockbook of Bernardo Giunti, Los Angeles: UCLA Research Library, Department of Special Collections, 1991). For an overview of the holdings of the period, see Mirella Ferrari's Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the University of California, Los Angeles, edited by R.H. Rouse (Los Angeles: University of, California Press, 1991).
The department has coordinated its collections of modern fine presses, particularly those of California printers, with the Clark Library. Special Collections is a repository of publications of the Black Sparrow Press (California) and the Whittington Press (England). Special book collections have been created, such as one for books printed by Edmund Evans and another for books designed and illustrated by Rex Whistler. Charles Gullans and John Espey presented their collections of bindings designed by the Decorative Designers and by Margaret Armstrong. The Department maintains with current acquisitions a collection of graphic arts ephemera (mostly prospectuses) begun by Jake Zeitlin.
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Last update: 8/4/98
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