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Used Books? Tracing the History of Ownership in the Fagel Collection

By Emily Monty

Dr Emily Monty was the Fagel Collection Visiting Research Fellow in autumn 2022 hosted by the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute. She will present her work at the symposium on Unlocking the Fagel Collection: The Library and its Context (June 21-23, 2023).

At the turn of the nineteenth century, Trinity College Dublin had the remarkable opportunity to purchase the entire library of Hendrik Fagel the Younger (1765-1838), Greffier, or Chief Minister, of the Dutch Republic. Drawing on funds provided by the Erasmus Smith Foundation, TCD acquired the Fagel Library in 1802. This purchase included over 20,000 volumes and increased the number of books in the Trinity College Library by about 40 per cent.

While these books came from the collection of Hendrik the Younger, many of the volumes have a longer provenance, or history of ownership, not only because they were passed down through generations of Fagel patriarchs, but also because they were purchased second-hand. In fact, the Dutch Republic was a centre of public book auctions in the early modern period, making it a place where one could readily find and acquire antiquarian and used books.

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Announcing a Second Series of Fagel Videos

Series of videos about the Fagel Collection at the Library of Trinity College Dublin

A series of nine videos is being launched today which will showcase some of the finest items from the Fagel collection. Trinity College Dublin academics and Library staff share their expertise and provide behind-the-scenes insight into the conservation, cataloguing and digitization of one of the jewels of the Library’s collections.

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The Fagel Videos

A series of Videos about the Fagel Family and their Collections

The Library of Trinity College and the KB National Library of the Netherlands are collaborating on a video project about the Fagel family and their collections. The private library of the Fagels has been in Dublin since 1802, but traces of their working life and family history can still be found across The Hague.

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