This collection of approximately 18,000 items includes books and periodicals on German literature, linguistics, philology, folklore, and related disciplines. Materials date from the 15th through the 19th centuries. The Bechstein Library was acquired by the University of Pennsylvania in 1896.
The Penn Libraries hold a collection of more than 600 medieval manuscript fragments from the Cairo Genizah.
This webpage provides an overview of special collections in the Penn Libraries relevant to the study of the environment and ecology, presented thematically across a broad range of historical time and geographic space.
The Gondi-Medici Business Records comprise nearly two hundred separate bound manuscripts and other collections of documents—primarily account books, letter collections, and ledgers. These contain a vast array of information about the activities of multiple branches of the Gondi, Medici and related families in Italy in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Penn's libraries are home to a wide range of special and general collections related to the Holy Land.
The Kislak Center holds over 560 exemplars of books printed in Europe from movable type before 1501. Sixty-six of these titles are the only recorded copies in North America. These volumes contain texts in religion, philosophy, and ancient and modern literature. This collection group includes includes incunables from the Henry Charles Lea Library and the Yarnall Library of Theology.
The Kislak Center holds substantial collections of family papers from Italy, containing a wide range of documents dating from the Middle Ages and Renaissance into modern times. This webpage provides an overview of these diverse collections.