The ITS collection at the Custody of the Holy Land

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[read in Italian]

Ancient books about the Holy Land (especially pilgrims’ reports, but also more historical and scientifical works) are obviously spread throughout libraries all around the world. However, the Library of the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem holds a precious collection of this rare material, which is not exhaustive but very rich (Itinera ad Loca Sancta). The founder of this collection was the librarian Father Agustín Arce (see the digital exhibition). To promote the most ancient part of this collection (15th-18th centuries), Alessandro Tedesco, now director of the “Card. Carlo Maria Martini” Library of the Archiepiscopal Seminary of Milan in Venegono Inferiore, designed two useful tools during his civil service in Jerusalem. The first is a printed catalogue with a lot of information about authors and works, while the second is a digital catalogue containing the digitisation of all the illustrations of the editions. The aforementioned APHL Digital Library broadens even more the horizon, placing the collection of the library in the world stage of all publications of this genre.