Holdings: Figures

I will approach our holdings from a few angles. In terms of figures, Cultura Fonds Library currently holds the following items:

• 7 manuscripts (15th-16th C), all of which are part of bindings, except one double parchment leaf (grand folio)
  

• 3 etchings (all framed; 2: 16th C, 1: 18th C)

• 2 autograph letters (16th C)

• 125 ordinnances and broadsides (16th C)

• printed books spanning 4 centuries (excluding one 20th C reprint of a 16th C book), published from from1470 till 1789.

If we look per century, we get the following figures:

• holdings from the 15th century: 21 (3 manuscripts and 18 incunables or books printed before 1501)

• holdings from the 16th century: 795 (among them 35 postincunables or printed books published before 1541)
  

• holdings from the 17th century: 169

• holdings from the 18th century: 43 (among them 2 reprints of 16th C books)

And we add:

• holdings from the 20th century: 1 (its sole interest being a 20th C facsimile of a 16th book)

Welcome to Cultura Fonds Library

The Cultura Fonds Library is a library of Rare Books and Manuscripts situated at Dilbeek, Belgium.

It is privately, company-owned, and was founded in 1991, following the acquisition of 510 books printed by a 16th C printer born in France around 1520, but based at Antwerp: Christophe Plantin (Period of activity: c.1549-1589). We will come back to the holdings in detail shortly.

The Library can be visited by the larger public and by researchers every weekday from Mo-Fri, during business hours: 9.00 a.m - 5.30 p.m. Visits are arranged by appointment with the curator.

The purpose of presenting it in these pages is to acquaint the larger public with the library's holdings and features, but our approach certainly takes into account the interest of book historians.

Perhaps these pages become superfluous once a presentation by other digital means becomes possible, which will be of greater research interest, but this is uncertain at the moment.

More precisely, we hope to highlight in these pages certain partial features of the collection, such as bindings or provenances.