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The collection of the Montserrat Library contains 382,000 monographs, 7,400 periodicals, 1,800 manuscripts, 408 incunabula, 18,700 engravings, 50,000 joys, 2,200 antic maps, and 1,500 papyrus and parchment. The main themes of the library are bibliography and general books, theology, Bible, philosophy, biography and history books, language and literature.
We find the Western ones, written in Latin, Greek and modern languages, and the Eastern, mostly written in Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic as well as other minority languages, which come from the acquisitions made by Fr. Bonaventura Ubach.
In several languages, mostly Latin, but also Spanish, Catalan, Italian or French. Books were printed in European printing houses and subjects are mostly philosophy, architecture, philology, music, laws, or history. There are some books about religion written by Montserrat monks and printed in the monastery itself.
This is the section that brings together the collection on contemporary history of Spain and especially on the Dictatorship of Primo the Rivera, Spanish Civil War and Franco’s regime. It has its origin in the donation of the collection that Francesc Cambó made to the monastery and from the books he had collected in Switzerland about Civil War. Currently, this section is made up of approximately 13,000 documents. There is a collection of magazines and newspaper, and paper files with press clippings from those years.
It’s an important number of maps and atlases from all periods, mostly old, which has been complemented and increased thanks to the donation of the Gasset-Marcet family, in 2018, mostly from Catalonia and Barcelona. Currently, this collection is made up of some 2,200 documents ranging from maps and plans to atlases and reference works on geography.
It’s formed by 1,500 pieces of papyrus and parchment, donated by the papyrologist father Ramon Roca Puig. Includes fragments of papyrus and parchment written in Greek, Coptic, Latin, Arabic and Hieratic languages. The subjects are mostly history, liturgy and Bible as well as economics and laws. There are also some literary pieces, as classics as Christians.
Archive ceded to Montserrat, over many years, by the grandsons of the patron of the Obra del Cançoner Popular de Catalunya, Rafael Patxot i Jubert. It contains the material collected in the various research missions by the Catalan lands, carried out between 1922 and 1940, plus that of two competitions called by the Obra del Cançoner and that coming from very different donations or purchases. A large part of the popular songs collected by Marià Aguiló in the 19th century, the proverb also collected by Aguiló and a good number of folders with folk material by Rossend Serra i Pagès were also integrated in it.
The reports corresponding to the research missions of the Obra del Cançoner, with a selection of the musical and literary texts that were collected there, are published in twenty-one volumes of Materials of the Obra del Cançoner Popular de Catalunya, in the volumes IV and XXI of which there is an inventory of all the contents of the archive.
This collection is not directly consultable in Montserrat, but is digitized in the Direcció General de Cultura Popular de la Generalitat de Catalunya, where it can only be consulted for study purposes.
The oldest incunabula in the library date from around 1470. There are from the main European production places as Germany, Spain, France or Italy. The monastery of Montserrat had its own printing during the 1490s, first publishing bullets of privileges and later liturgy and spirituality books composed by Germany impressors Luschner and Rosenbach and later printing books for Barcelona and Manresa printers.
Brings together, on one hand, the texts written by Montserrat monks and published over the centuries, and on the other hand, the works that talk about Montserrat and the themes that derive from it: religious life, liturgy, pilgrimages, botany, geology, legends, etc.
It is a collection of about 18,700 engravings, printed from the 15th century to the present days, representative of all techniques and by such outstanding authors as Dürer, Cranach, Mantegna, Rembrandt, Piranesi, Goya, Fortuny o Picasso. This collection was formed together during the Abbot Marcet period and has been complemented by important legacies such as that of Just Cabot.
Collection about 50,000 joys, poetic compositions, written in Catalan and Spanish, talking about the grace and virtues of the Virgin and some Saints, that come from various donations.
Includes books of great value that comes from 18th century to nowadays. As an independent place, was inaugurated in 2016 on the occasion of the extension of the library. There are mainly bibliophile editions with very short editions, numbered editions, books printed on luxury paper, on parchment or even on cork, facsimile editions or books with artistic bindings from workshops such as the Brugallas or Manuel Bueno.
Tel.: 938 77 77 68
E-mail: biblioteca@abadiamontserrat.net
Adress: Abadia de Montserrat, Biblioteca
08199 Montserrat – Barcelona
