A New Project to Investigate Hernando Colón’s Library

There is a three-year project funded by the Carlsberg Foundation entitled “The Book of Books: Hernando Colón’s Libro de los Epítomes” to investigate one of the manuscripts in the Arnamagnæan Collection, AM 377 fol., that was identified as having belonged to Hernando Colón, son of the famous navigator Christopher Columbus.

Copenhagen, Den Arnamagnæanske Samling, AM 377 fol. contains summaries of around 2000 books that belonged to Hernando Colón. Photo Suzanne Reitz, Arnamagnæan Institute, University of Copenhagen.

The recent discovery of the Libro de los epítomes is one of the most exciting developments in early modern book history for decades and the principal aim of the project is the production of a bilingual edition, both in digital and print form, of AM 377 fol., a collection of summaries of the books in the library of Hernando Colón.

Running between May 2020-April 2023, the project is led by Matthew James Driscoll together with Morten Hieberg from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark and an international advisory team that consists of Guy Lazure (University of Windsor, Canada), José María Pérez Fernández (University of Granada, Spain), Edward Wilson-Lee (Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, UK), Anders Toftgaard (Royal Danish Library, Denmark) and myself.

Read about my preliminary findings on Libro de los epítomes here and an interview with me on the topic here.

Information and updates on the project can be found here.