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Autumn 2003
20 Treasures: A sampling
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of the addition and renovations to Shadek-Fackenthal Library and creation of the library’s Archives and Special Collections, the library staff selected 20 treasures to display. “We chose items not only on the basis of factors such as rarity or age, but for their uniqueness and significance to our collection,” said College Archivist Christopher Raab. This sampling represents only a quarter of the treasure trove.
click an image to enlarge
This ca. 1450 illuminated manuscript is attributed to the Utrecht school and the Dutch translation of Gerd de Groot. Handwritten and decorated on vellum, this type of religious work was commissioned by a family for private devotional use. Gift of Elaine Hawley.
Geburt und Taufschein of Anna Margaretha Breisch, Aug. 1, 1762
This early hand-written and hand-colored fraktur is one of several hundred examples of this Pennsylvania German folk art in the Unger-Bassler Frakturschriften collection. Gift of the Harvey Bassler Estate.
Document listing contributors to Franklin College, 1787
This original document from the College archives
notes the 200-pound contribution made by Benjamin Franklin supporting
the creation of Franklin
College. Gift of David McNeely Stauffer.
Speculum Aureum Decem Praeceptorum dei, 2nd ed. by Heinrich Herp, 1481
The oldest book owned
by Franklin & Marshall
College, this example of incunabula (books printed in the first 50 years
of the
hand-press period) was printed in Nuremburg, Germany by Anton Koberger.
Set in blackletter type, it is decorated and rubricated throughout. Notes
of ownership include a priory of Augustinian canons at Nuenkirchen (Franconia),
15th century, and a Capucin convent at Bamburg, dated 1638. Gift of Herbert
and Anica Rawnsley
Epistola de Contemptu Mundi di Frate Hieronymo da Ferrara, by Girolamo Savonarola, 1894
Beautiful
Arts and Crafts–era book printed by William Morris’ Kelmscott
Press. Contains fine woodcut engravings and tooled leather binding.
Autograph letter by John Marshall
Letter from John Marshall to U.S. Attorney General
Charles Lee, March 14, 1798. Written during the height of the XYZ Affair,
Marshall cryptically
refers to declining Franco-American relations caused by the refusal of
U.S. diplomats to pay bribes to French foreign minister Tallyrand to gain
trade agreements. Friends of the Library Fund purchase in honor of
retiring President Richard Kneedler ’65.
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