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The Cathedral of Seville houses two important collections: the Biblioteca Colombina (Columbus Library) and the Biblioteca Capitular (Cathedral Library). Both are private libraries and archives and neither receive financial support from either the Spanish government or the provincial Junta of Andalucía.
The Biblioteca Colombina y Capitular is supported by the Fundación Cristóbal Colón and its administrative branch, the Institución Colombina, through the generosity of Ambassador Manuel Prado y Colón de Carvajal, a descendant of Columbus, who founded both the institution and the foundation. Hernando Colón, son of Christopher Columbus, assembled the Biblioteca Colombina between 1496 and 1539. It remains one of the major humanist collections of the Renaissance--the holdings of this library form the intellectual underpinnings of the best and brightest of the age. The original collection contained 15,000 volumes amassed by Colón, an indefatigable bibliophile, who traveled throughout Europe buying books. Many of the materials have been lost over the centuries, but a manuscript catalog of the original collection survived and was published in a facsimile edition in 1992. Today the Biblioteca Colombina houses 3,200 volumes, of which 1,250 are incunabula and 587 are manuscripts. One of the most unique items is the Libro de Profecías of Christopher Columbus.
The Biblioteca Capitular of the Cathedral of Seville was founded after Seville was conquered by Christian Spain from the Muslim rulers in 1248. In 1284 King Alphonse X ("the Wise") donated part of his personal collection to the Cathedral. Over the centuries many other donations greatly enriched the Cathedral’s holdings. Today the Biblioteca Capitular holds 60,000 books, manuscripts, maps, music, and prints--many of them relating to the history of the Americas.
A preponderance of the early settlers of the New World hailed from this area of Spain. As such, the conquistadors brought to the Americas the language, literature, laws, customs, and culture of Renaissance Spain. The Biblioteca Capitular possesses an outstanding collection of medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque music manuscripts, maps, codices, and handwritten documents, dating from the13th century onward.
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