page_title: Royal Library of Belgium
section_title: Collection
hierarchical_section_title: Royal Library of Belgium / Collection
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Atlas uit 1595 van Gerard Mercator, uitgegeven na zijn dood. Het is de eerste volledige editie van zijn atlas. Ze omvat een biografie van Mercator, enkele aan hem opgedragen gedichten, zijn traktaat over de schepping van de wereld en 107 kaarten. Dit algemene werk over kosmogonie handelt over de wereld en de vijf continenten en bevat gedetailleerde kaarten van Europa, land voor land en streek per streek. De kaarten werden gedrukt met behulp van koperplaten en werden vervolgens met de hand ingekleurd. This is a file created at the museum: Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels
context_page_description: The Royal Library of Belgium is the national library of Belgium. The library has a history that goes back to the age of the Dukes of Burgundy. In the second half of the 20th century, a new building was constructed on the Mont des Arts in central Brussels, near the Central Station. The library owns several collections of historical importance, like the famous Fétis archives, and is the depository for all books ever published in Belgium or abroad by Belgian authors.
  There are four million bound volumes in the Royal Library, including a rare book collection numbering 45,000 works. The library has more than 700,000 engravings and drawings, 150,000 maps and plans, and more than 250,000 objects, from coins to scales to monetary weights. This coin collection holds one of the most valuable coins in the field of numismatics, a fifth-century Sicilian tetradrachm. The library also houses the Center for American Studies, a rich American Studies collection of 30,000 books in open stacks, as well as U.S. newspapers and databases.
  The Royal Library is open for reference only. Patrons must be at least eighteen years of age and must pay an annual membership fee.
context_section_description: With more than 6 million books (more than 150 kilometres of bookshelves), the Royal Library of Belgium is the biggest library in the country. It contains:
  4,000,000 books
  21,500 magazines
  150,000 maps
  32,000 manuscripts
  300,000 ancient printed materials
  700,000 pictures
  9,200 microfilms
  50,000 long playing records
  The library has 6 “special” divisions, namely the precious works, maps and plans, sheet music, manuscripts, coins, and medals. It also serves as a collection point of Dutch-language artworks. The initial basis of the collections were the library of Charles van Hulthem, acquired in 1837, and the library of the City of Brussels, acquired in 1842, which had come to include large parts of the former Royal Library of the Low Countries (founded 1559).
caption: The library's copy of the 1595 atlas of Gerardus Mercator
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