The library's stock of rare books
began to form back In the 19th century and today it contains more
than 70,000 volumes. An appreciable portion of those are
incunabula: about 6,000 works which represent very rich material
for anyone wishing to learn about the history of printing in
15th-century Western Europe. Impressive for their high standard
of technical execution, artistry and scholarliness are the works
by the great humanist printer of the Renaissance, Aldus Manutius,
and his heirs. There is a remarkable collection of Elseviers,
produced by the celebrated 17th-century Dutch family firm which
published mainly utilitarian books. The library is truly without
rivals for its stock of early Russian printed books. Here one can
find Slavonic incunabula, editions issued by Slavonic printshops
in the Balkans, Venice and Ugro-Wallachia, two-thirds of the
works printed in Cyrillic in the 16th century, including all the
known publications of Franzisk Skorina, and also the greatest collection
of books of the Petrine era printed in the new civil orthography.
