The catalogue of shipwrecked books : young Columbus and the quest for a universal library

The Resource The catalogue of shipwrecked books : young Columbus and the quest for a universal library
Label
The catalogue of shipwrecked books : young Columbus and the quest for a universal library
Title remainder
young Columbus and the quest for a universal library
Statement of responsibility
Edward Wilson-Lee
Creator
Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
"Created in 1539, the Biblioteca Colombina in Sevilla contains over 3000 books. This is but a fraction of one man's life spent collecting every book on every subject - including antique and modern worlds, science and law, as well as playing cards, pornography, and popular music. Who was Hernando Columbus and how did he achieve this? Set to the backdrop of Christopher Columbus' paradigm-defining explorations of the New World and beyond, and cutting across events of the Renaissance and Reformation, this book follows Hernando Columbus' bibliomania and curation of the first ever library of its kind. As the `natural son' of Christopher, Hernando had a complex relationship to his father and an acute need to validate his position. While originally from Liguria, Italy, it is in Spain that Christopher found travel patronage. The newly united Spain was under the rule of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Due to this special rapport, Hernando spent his formative years as a page boy for Prince Juan, setting himself up as part of the royal inner circle. In his time assisting with the various minute as menial tasks necessary for the care of the Infante, he learned how to devise various organisational systems that would inform his future librarianship. By the time of his death in 1539 Hernando possessed the largest book collection of Europe - yet it was but a fraction of his collection, which he had envisioned as `everything' on every topic. Hernando had built an immortal engine capable of withstanding the return to dust that awaited all humans, creating not only a repository for books but also a proposition for how they would fit together. In this book, Wilson-Lee chronicles his extraordinary journey."--
Cataloging source
DLC
Dewey number
010.9/2
Illustrations
  • illustrations
  • maps
  • plates
Index
no index present
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
bibliography
Target audience
adult

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