Monuments of book culture: The exhibition of book monuments of the Dutch culture of the XV-XIX centuries in Saint-Petersburg

The Department of Manuscripts of the National Library of Russia (Saint-Petersburg) in the framework of the Year of Russia in the Netherlands and the Netherlands in Russia, on September 26, 2013 opens an exhibition of Dutch literary monuments of culture of the XV-XIX centuries.

The exhibition features beautifully decorated hand-written prayer books and gospel, as well as codes with lists of “Imitation of a Christ” - a book that by the number of publications in the world takes the second place after the Bible. 

Among the exhibits are autographs of the founder of Dutch independence Silent Prince William I of Orange and the “prince of humanists” Erasmus of Rotterdam. Visitors can also see the Dutchman personal documents in Russian service, the hero of the War of 1812 and a prominent diplomat Peter Kornilovich Suchtelen, whose library and a collection of manuscripts were received in the Imperial Public Library in 1836. Peter Suchtelen left its memory as an outstanding figure who made contribution to the engineering in Russia, he created the well-known at his time “Suhtelenovskaya system” of defense forts and created a detailed “stolistnaya map of the Russian Empire”. The exhibition also features letters of Dutch artists and publishers.

The exhibition will run till October 26.