A Collection of Almanac Prints: In Conversation with the Collector

Last year, Leiden University Libraries acquired the collection of Bart Fontein, consisting of some two hundred student almanacs (1815-2015) and associated almanac prints. Curator Mart van Duijn spoke with Fontein about the hunt for missing copies and the transfer of his collection to the UBL.

Mart van Duijn • December 18, 2025

Wanted! Original drawings by Johan Huizinga

Are you the unwitting owner of an original drawing by Johan Huizinga? It could be part of the first ever exhibition of his visual works in the University Museum of Groningen from 1 February until 1 May 2025. Will you help us find Huizinga's lost drawings?

Anton van der Lem • August 13, 2024

Arthurian Hero Meets Cistercian Monks in Bonn

Installing the Wigalois manuscript in the Rheinisches Museum. A courier reports.

André Bouwman • November 07, 2017

A forbidden book

The current Leiden University Libraries exhibition ‘Sanskrit – Asia and Beyond’ features a richly illustrated Persian translation of the Kamasutra from the Mughal period. This manuscript with its abundant erotic drawings was not always easily accessible.

Karin Scheper • August 15, 2017

Huygens in Leiden: the house rules of landlord Paravicino

Constantijn Huygens received the regulations in a letter dated 26 May 1645. Were they disputed by his sons Constantijn Jr and Christiaan, who were students in Leiden and rented rooms at Paravicino’s?

André Bouwman • May 23, 2013

Two angels by Taddeo Zuccaro

In the year 1529 the medieval church San Marcello al Corso in Rome burnt down to the ground. Nothing but a crucifix could be saved from its ashes.

Jef Schaeps • May 11, 2012

Imagining the past in a royal codex

It took four folio volumes to contain an illustrated Miroir historial. A manuscript now kept in Leiden and one in Paris form the first two volumes of such a set, ordered by the French royal family.

André Bouwman • November 19, 2010

Facebooker in the sixteenth century: Bonaventura Vulcanius

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars developed their own ways of creating a social network. How did they communicate without modern social media like Facebook, Hyves and LinkedIn?

Kasper van Ommen • October 07, 2010

Exhibition on the 400th anniversary of the invention of the telescope

On 25 September 1608 Hans Lipperhey, an optician from Middelburg applied for a patent for a 'certain instrument to see far'.

André Bouwman • March 12, 2010

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