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The Harry Ransom Center acquired a significant collection of books and manuscripts
from the
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in the early 1980s. The seminary’s library
was
pressed for space to house its growing collection, and the material transferred to
the
Ransom Center, generally of a rare and fragile character, was not closely related
to the
current programs of the seminary. |
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The collection is organized in four series: I. Sermons and Religious Manuscripts,
1678-1914, II. Spanish Language Manuscripts, 1515-1841, III. Other Manuscripts, 1301-1928,
and IV. Music Manuscripts, circa 1550-circa 1910. Within the first three series, items
have
been arranged alphabetically by author, or by title if no author is discernible. In
Series
IV arrangement is chronological. Titles have been supplied if none were present, and
these
are given within brackets. The range of languages found among the manuscripts is broad:
English, Spanish, Latin, Hebrew, German, French, and Italian are all represented by
multiple
works. |
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Series I embraces collections of English-language sermons and lectures from the seventeenth
to the nineteenth century, along with several related manuscripts in other languages.
The
materials are, in the main, in their original bindings. |
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The manuscripts found in Series II are divided into two subseries. Subseries A. Cartas
Ejecutorias, 1515-1805, contains fourteen examples of these royal documents confirming
noble
descent. The specimens held in the collection are on paper or vellum; most of these
are
decorated with armorial devices, religious art, and initials in color. Several are
in
contemporary leather, others in original vellum; some bear tax stamps. Subseries B.
includes
other Spanish language collections of archival material and genealogical documents
dating
from circa 1600 to 1841. |
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Series III embraces an extremely variegated assortment of manuscripts, including two
seventeenth century British legal documents, a nineteenth century Italian treatise
on
pyrotechnics, an eighteenth century work on disorders of the head, and a two-volume
sixteenth century history of Zurich, Switzerland. The oldest manuscript found here
is a
royal privilege of King Ferdinand IV of Castile dating from 1301 and written in Old
Spanish. |
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Represented in the final series are several manuscripts of West European origin, dating
from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries along with a substantial group
of
Hebrew scores in Latin transliteration created in L’viv, Ukraine and London. These
latter
were composed at least in part by Eduard and Herman Darewski. |
