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Gems of the Fagel Collection: Athanasius Kircher’s Mundus subterraneus 1678

A copy of Athansasius Kircher’s Mundus subterraneus is without doubt one of the most beautiful books in the Fagel Collection. The colouring is of an exceptional quality, initials and captions are heightened with gold throughout the book. Samuel Paterson, who compiled the Fagel auction catalogue for Christie’s in 1802, described it ‘a matchless copy, illuminated in the style of the ancient missals’. Time to take a closer look at this copy. Why did the otherwise so modest Fagels own such a lavishly decorated book?

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Gems of the Fagel Collection: La Géométrie Pratique 1702

Anita Cooper

The Fagel Collection contains a copy of Alain Manesson-Mallet’s 1702 four volume work La géométrie pratique printed in Paris (shelf mark Fag.N.7.33-36). He was a French cartographer and fortifications engineer who served the armies of both France and Portugal and later taught mathematics in the court of Louis XIV.

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An edition of Divina Commedia in the Fagel Collection

The Fagel collection was assembled as a working library by several generations of the Fagel family, of whom successive members held high offices in the Dutch Republic throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth century. The collection comprises books on a great variety of subjects, including literature in numerous languages. In that respect, it is hardly a surprise to come across an edition of Dante’s Divina Commedia in the library.

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