Selected Special Collections

Bible Collection

Early editions and rare issues of the Bible, (1,471 titles).

A collection of Bibles in 150 different languages spaning from the 15th to 20th century. Important works in the collection include a gift from the Charles H. Slama Library consisting of thirty-one books, three of which are incunabula, two 16th century English Bibles and assorted 16th century Bibles in Latin and Greek. Also included are a portfolio of original leaves from Bibles, and editions of Homer, Milton and Adam Smith.

Perhaps the most important book in the Slama donation to the Bible Collection is a four-volume Latin Bible printed in 1497 by Anton Koberger. This Bible is quite uncommon in its complete form, as found , which has the added interest of being in its original binding of blind-stamped calf over wooden boards. An abundance of manuscript leaves, among them a four-page eleventh-century fragment and a twenty-page fragment form circa 1400, are used as endpapers. The thirty-eight woodcuts in this Bible are reduced versions of those appearing in the 1481 Koberger Bible, the first illustrated book to come from that press.

Also see the Bible Collection Exhibit.