Fagel Collection
The Fagel Collection is a collection assembled by the, a prominent political family in the Dutch Republic during the Early Modern Period, which now resides at the Library of Trinity College Dublin. Comprising 30,000 printed books, as well as manuscripts, maps, and other engraved materials, making it one of the most prolific collections in Europe. Topics covered include domestic and international history and politics, natural history, geography, literature, and theology. Materials within the collection come from many different countries and are in multiple languages, most commonly Dutch, French, and English.
Related collections are housed at the National Archives of the Netherlands in The Hague.
History
In 1680, bought the real estate for what would become the Fagel family's dwelling and home of their enormous library on the prestigious street of Noordeinde in The Hague. kept his collections, not only print material but also coins and graphic arts, in the gallery leading to a pavilion now known as the.The collecting spanned generations, with François the Elder and contributing especially to the library. After the death of Hendrik the Elder, his grandson, , inherited the library. Hendrik the Younger was abroad when, in 1795, French forces invaded the Dutch Republic and he was dismissed from his post as. Financial constraints resulting from his expulsion prompted Hendrik the Younger to transport his family's library to London where he proceeded to sell it.
Acquisition by Trinity College Dublin
Hendrik Fagel the Younger originally intended to sell his vast family collection at auction and commissioned a catalogue for this purpose. The sale was to be held at Christie's auction house, but it never took place. With funding from the Erasmus Smith Trust, the books, manuscripts, and maps that now make up the Fagel Collection were bought for the Library of Trinity College Dublin for £8,000. The carefully packed collection arrived in Dublin in May of 1802, where it bolstered the library's capacity by 40 percent. As a new room had to be built and older collections rearranged to accommodate the bulk of the addition, the Fagel library, as it was locally known, at Trinity College Dublin was opened on 1 March 1809.Contents
Trinity's Fagel Collection holds the Trinity College Plutarch, a two volume edition of Greek philosopher Plutarch's assemblage of biographies, Parallel Lives. This edition was printed in Latin on fine parchment and set in Roman type by Nicolaus Jenson, illuminated by the Master of the London Pliny in Venice, Italy during the Renaissance, around 1478.
The collection also contains thirty-six plays published by Thomas Johnson in The Hague between 1718 and 1726.
Manuscripts
The Fagel Collection includes manuscript material, the most well-known being the journal of Simon van der Stel from his travels to Namaqualand in the 1680s.Another celebrated work in the collection is The Fagel Missal, created by the in Delft around 1460, remarkable for its elaborate decoration. The name 'Margaret' is written on the Missal, suggesting that it was authored by a woman, a rare thing to be documented during the period of the Missal's creation as many female writers and illustrators remained anonymous.
A lesser known manuscript is an album of tulip illustrations drawn between 1637 and 1641, significant because it is estimated to be one of fifty surviving manuscripts of its kind:, a product of pre-1637 Dutch 'tulipmania'.
As the family home on Noordeinde underwent several architectural and design changes over the generations, the Trinity collection includes construction drawings for the Fagel home. The collection also contains an album of eighteenth-century architectural drawings of buildings in Saint Petersburg, including a plan for the Smolny Convent. This album is notable as it is one of only four of its kind found outside of Russia.