Calliotheca – Gems from the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Many people are aware that the “Palace of Sciences the majestic seat of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences that dates back more than 150 years, is the symbolic centre of Hungarian academic and scientific thinking. The Academy’s highest decisionmaking body, the General Assembly, meets here, but it is also the venue for the Academy’s inaugural speeches, conferences of its various scientific sections and scientific events. However, probably far fewer people know that the neo-Renaissance palace on the bank of the Danube and the adjoining block is not just the home of science in the narrow sense of the word. It is also the home of culture. The Academy is the custodian of precious treasures of Hungarian and universal cultural history, and possesses collections going back almost to its foundation. Following István Széchenyi’s noble gesture of giving a year’s income from his estates to found a learned society, József Teleki, the first president of the Academy, donated his family library of 30,000 volumes as early as 1826. This provided the basis for the Academy’s first scientific institution. Thanks to the countless donations over the almost two hundred years that have elapsed since then, several collections have been created, which have been continuously expanded and enriched. Thus the Library and Information Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is today the guardian of invaluable public collections. The task of its staff is not merely the preservation of the books, manuscripts, incunabula and other documents in the Library’s custody, but also their scientific arrangement and defining their significance in cultural history in a broader context. One of my main goals as president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is to make scientific achievements known and accessible to the public. I would also like to share the most interesting pieces in the public collections of the Academy with a wide audience. Together with the experts who care for them, I am striving to bring more and more of these treasured items to people who appreciate lasting values and cultural rarities – whenever possible by the most enduring experience of seeing them in person. Presenting as many treasures as possible was the intention guiding the authors and editors of this beautifully illustrated book, which allows the rarely exhibited items that belong to the public, or rather the community, but are preserved by specialists in collections to be seen and admired at least pictorially. I trust that this selection of the Academy’s treasures presented in an elegant manner befitting their value will captivate, inform and entertain the reader. ”

László Lovász

President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences