Collection highlights, acquisition news, events, exhibits, and behind-the-scenes looks at the work and services of Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC) at Notre Dame.
Rare Books and Special Collections welcomes students, faculty, staff, researchers, and visitors back to campus for Fall 2026! We want to let you know about a variety of things to watch for in the coming semester.
“Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations.” — P.H. Pearse, August 1915
In 1803, Robert Emmet led a failed rebellion to overthrow British rule in Ireland. In 1848, a group called Young Ireland staged a brief revolt that was hastily crushed. The Fenian Brotherhood invaded British North America in 1866, and the Irish Republican Brotherhood organized a series of unsuccessful raids in Ireland the following year. On Easter Monday, 1916, a small group of Irish insurgents launched a rebellion in Dublin that was quashed in under a week. While these four attempts to create an independent Ireland may have failed, they each gave rise to a powerful romantic narrative that captivated the spirits of the Irish at home and abroad. Out of sacrifice and tragedy sprang patriotic verse, defiant journalism, cultural revival, and eventually, Irish freedom from British rule.
This exhibit features items from Rare Books and Special Collections and the University Archives that document the heroes, martyrs, and idealistic men and women who forged modern Ireland.
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
Special Collections’ Classes & Workshops
Throughout the semester, curators will lead instructional sessions related to our holdings for undergraduate and graduate students from Notre Dame, Saint Mary’s College, and Holy Cross College. Curators may also be available to show special collections materials to visiting classes, from preschool through adults. If you would like to arrange a group visit and class with a curator, please contact Special Collections.
Some of the recent acquisitions highlighted on the blog in the past year.
Anticipated Closures
Rare Books and Special Collections is regularly open 9:30am to 4:30pm, Monday through Friday. The department will be closed for the following holidays and events:
August 20, closing early at 1:45 pm for a Library event (Thursday)
September 7, for Labor Day (Monday)
November 26–27, for Thanksgiving (Thursday and Friday)
Our last day open before the campus closure for Christmas Celebration will be Wednesday, December 23. We will reopen on Monday, January 4, 2027.
As fans around the world watch the 23rd World Cup this summer hosted by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, RBSC recently browsed the stacks for World Cup history. We are pleased to highlight these sources from the collection documenting the first two World Cup tournaments in 1930 and 1934.
The inaugural World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, and the host nation ended up winning the championship. After the tournament, the Uruguayan Football Association published an illustrated history of the event, Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football = La Coupe du monde : Montevideo, julio de 1930(The First World Football Championships – The World Cup: Montevideo, July 1930). This oversized book commemorates and documents the tournament in more than 120 pages and hundreds of photographs.
Printed in both Spanish and French, the book contains plentiful information about the teams, players, and games. This page devoted to the runner-up Argentinian team is typical of the coverage of the participating countries (page 26). The book also includes images and descriptions of every tournament match, like this two-page spread about the United States’ 3-0 opening round victory over Belgium (pages 42-43).
The book gave extensive coverage to the semifinals and the finals, intricately documenting each goal in the championship game. Here we see a description of Uruguay’s third goal by Santos Iriarte in the 68th minute that gave Uruguay the lead for good en route to its 4-2 victory (page 96).
Four years later, Italy, under dictator Benito Mussolini, hosted the second World Cup, and, again the home team came away victorious. In advance of the tournament, the Italian National Tourism Board published this 26-page English-language pamphlet, See Italy and the World’s Football Championship, to entice visitors to come to Italy despite the continuing Great Depression.
The competition took place in eight different locations, which, as the pamphlet pointed out, “are most attractive, as only Italian cities can be” (page 6). The finals were held in Rome, which the Tourism Board declared, “embraces every attraction in Italy and is unsurpassed by any other city in the world” (page 20).
Mussolini Stadium of Turin (left) and San Siro Stadium of Milan (right).
The booklet featured photographs, descriptions, and simple maps of each of the host cities and stadiums, including the Mussolini Stadium of Turin and the San Siro Stadium of Milan. The championship game, which would see Italy defeat Czechoslovakia 2-1, was held in the Stadium of the National Fascist Party at Rome.
Rome and the Stadium of the National Fascist Party.
Title page of Lo Sport in Regime Fascista featuring Mussolini.
The following year, the Italian Olympic Committee in collaboration with the popular magazine Lo Sport Fascista jointly published Lo sport in regime fascista : 28 ottobre 1922-I 28 ottobre 1935-XIII (Sport in the Fascist Regime: 28 October 1922 I – 28 October 1935 XIII). This book recounted and celebrated Italian athletic achievements across a myriad of sports, including Italy’s recent World Cup title. The book’s frontispiece, which included a large image of Mussolini, demonstrated the close relationship between Italian sports and the ruling Fascist regime.
Calcio—or soccer—was featured in the fifth chapter, and the book revelled in Italy’s 1934 World Cup success. “Only in Fascist Italy could one seriously think about organizing the Second World Cup tournament” the book contended. “Only Italy could have taken on such a massive amount of work and responsibility. And it was a magnificent, beautiful, unforgettable event. Our beautiful sports fields, modern and superbly equipped; endless streams of foreigners who enjoyed our intelligent and truly affectionate hospitality; the battles between great champions, fought in an ideal atmosphere of serenity, discipline, and understanding” (page 40).
Original Italian: “Solo nell’Italia Fascista si poteva seriamente pensare all’organizzazione del II Torneo per la disputa della Coppa del Mondo…. Solo l’Italia poteva accettare un simile cumulo di lavoro e di responsabilità. E fu una cosa grandiosa, bellissima, indimenticabile. I nostri bei campi sportivi, moderni e mirabilmente attrezzati; interminable carovane di stranieri che godettero la nostra intelligente e veramente affettuosa ospitalità; battaglie di grandi campioni combattute in un clima ideale di serenità, di disciplina, di comprensione.”
Commemorative Italian postage stamps printed for the World Cup, or the Campionato del Mondo (page 34).
The book celebrated the victorious Italian national team, writing that “great goals, in truth, still await our formidable army of footballers. They will be achieved in the name of Fascism and for the glory of a sport that has truly brought Italy unparalleled satisfaction. The path already traveled and the conquests achieved, give the march of Italian footballers the rhythm and air of the inevitable” (page 40).
Original Italian: “Grandi mète, in verità, ulteriormente attendono il formidabile esercito dei nostri calciatori. Saranno raggiunte, nel nome del fascismo e per la gloria di uno sport che veramente diede all’Italia impareggiabili soddisfazioni. Il cammino percorso, le conquiste fatte, danno alla marcia dei calciatori italiani il ritmo ed il significato dell’ineluttabile.”
The Italian National Team that won the 1934 World Cup (page 35).
World Cup soccer has always been influenced by contemporary politics, and, like the Italian Fascists, national leaders have often sought to co-opt sporting success and athletic achievements for their own partisan reasons.
But, for just as long, many fans, spectators, athletes, and other observers have believed that global sporting events like the World Cup could serve a larger purpose and help to bridge the differences and conflicts between people. In his speech at the welcoming banquet for the delegations at the inaugural 1930 World Cup, for example, Dr. Raoul Jude, President of the Uruguayan Football Association, expressed his hope that the tournament could be a unifying event:
“Welcome, you travelers who arrive from all points of the compass, bringing us the message of solidarity and cordiality from different peoples and races, united nevertheless, above all differences and all of life’s hardships, within the higher fellowship of a lofty purpose aimed at the betterment of all mankind.
We read the clear message you bring us; and though some parts are not written in a language familiar to us, we instantly grasp their meaning through the frank gestures and the serene, united gaze of those who bear them” (Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football, pages 33-34).
Original Spanish: Bien venidos vosotros, viajeros que llegáis de todos los puntos cardinales trayéndonos el mensaje solidario y cordial de pueblos y razas diferentes, hermanadas no obstante, por encima de todas las diferencias y de todas las miserias de la vida, en la comunidad superior de un alto designio en el sentido del mejoramiento de todos los hombres de la tierra.
Leemos el claro mensaje que nos traéis, y aunque algunos de ellos no están escritos en la lengua que nos es familiar, descubrimos en seguida su sentido en el gesto franco y en la mirada serena y unánime de sus portadores.”
Players from the Uruguayan National Team celebrate the 1930 World Cup title on the pitch after the game (Primer Campeonato Mundial de Football, page 98).
With the 2026 World Cup soon coming to a close, we hope all teams, players, and fans have experienced a taste of La alégria del triunfo—the joy of victory—like the jubilant 1930 Uruguayan team seen here.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
A Community of Solidarity Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
Please join us for the following public events and exhibits being hosted in Rare Books and Special Collections:
Monday, March 5 at 5:00pm | Italian Research Seminar: M.A. Student Presentations (University of Notre Dame) — This semester’s speakers are: Giorgia Buscema and Madeline Grossman.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Women Religious in Male Spaces David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts)
Ireland’s Idealized Community Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Curator, Irish Studies)
A Community of Solidarity Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Russian and East European Studies)
Transnational Communities of Resistance during El Salvador’s Civil War Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Curator, Latin American and Iberian Studies)
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
Title page of book, printed in Venice by Melchiorre Sessa in 1516. It displays the characteristic printer’s device of the Sessa family, while the imprint and publication date are given in the colophon, as was common for early printed books.
Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia (Natural History) is one of the most important books to survive from the ancient world. Written in the first century CE, it is the earliest surviving encyclopedia and one of the most ambitious works of knowledge ever attempted. In thirty-seven books, Pliny gathered information on astronomy, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, pharmacology, mineralogy, and art, drawing on hundreds of Greek and Roman sources as well as his own observations (Siegfried, 2023). For more than a thousand years, this work shaped how Europeans understood the natural world.
Pliny believed that knowledge should be practical and widely shared. His encyclopedia was not meant only for philosophers, but for farmers, physicians, craftsmen, and administrators. Although modern science has corrected many of his claims, Natural History remained a foundational reference throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance because it compiled and preserved ancient learning that would otherwise have been lost (Stannard, 2026).
Pliny’s commitment to understanding nature is reflected in the dramatic circumstances of his death. In 79 CE, while serving as commander of the Roman fleet at Misenum, he witnessed the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Instead of fleeing, Pliny sailed closer, both to observe the phenomenon and possibly to help people trapped along the coast. He died during the eruption, most likely from poisonous gases. Our knowledge of this event comes from letters written by his nephew, Pliny the Younger, who provided the only surviving eyewitness account of the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum and narrated the story of a scholar who sacrificed his life in the pursuit of knowledge (Open Culture, 2022).
Woodcut marking the opening of Book II, which is centered on topics such as astronomy and meteorology.
Pliny’s influence continued through the centuries. During the Renaissance, his encyclopedia was rediscovered, printed, and translated for new audiences. A key figure in this renewed interest was Cristoforo Landino, a humanist scholar who translated Natural History from Latin into the Florentine dialect, which is the foundation of modern Italian. By making the text available in the vernacular as early as 1476, Landino allowed readers without formal knowledge of Latin to engage with ancient science and natural history (Ashworth, 2021). Landino’s translation reflects a broader effort, supported by the recent introduction of movable-type printing, to make learning more accessible beyond universities and monasteries.
Woodcut marking the opening of Book III. Books III–VI focus on geography and ethnography, while Book VII is devoted to anthropology.
Early printed editions of Pliny’s work were often richly illustrated with woodcuts. These images served a dual purpose. On one level, they decorated the book making it more appealing to readers and, at times, marking the transition between sections. On another, more important level, they helped readers visualize the animals, plants, and places described in the text. In a time when direct observation was becoming increasingly valued, woodcuts acted as visual tools for understanding nature, even when the images were imperfect or imaginative. These illustrations show how early modern readers tried to reconcile ancient texts with what they could see in the real world (Dlabacová, 2018).
Woodcuts marking the openings of the four books devoted to zoology (Books VIII–XI).
Even more revealing than the printed images are the handwritten notes left by readers in the margins. Marginal annotations show that Natural History was not treated as an unquestionable authority. Readers compared Pliny’s descriptions with their own experience and observation, added new information, and sometimes corrected or expanded the text. For modern scholars, these annotations provide rare insight into how early readers interacted with scientific texts.
The copy of Pliny’s Natural History held at the University of Notre Dame offers a remarkable example of this practice. In the margins, a reader describes a giant sea turtle caught by fishermen off the coast of Lisbon. The annotator states that the animal, which measured approximately seven and a half feet long and nine feet wide, was initially believed by some people to be a sea monster and records that it was presented to the king of Portugal. The reader also reports having seen the animal firsthand and identifies it with the turtle described by Pliny on the same page where the annotation appears.
Illustration of a turtle and the annotation on folios LIXv and LXr, at the page where Pliny discusses these animals in Chapter IX (on aquatic animals).
Text of the annotation and translation:
“Nel anno MDXXXXII nel mese di Aprile i piscatori olysiponesi presero sul mare oceano una testuggine la quale io stesso vidi & disegnai come si vede qui acanto; era lungha piedi sette e mezo, larga d’un corno ad altro (ouer’ alle) piedi noue / hauea il guscio amodo di liuto, il color nero, insomma fatta in tuto come qui discriue Plinio negli Tragloditi trouarsene. Ma credetero alcuni ch[e] no[n] fosse testuggine ma altro animale o mostro marino prodotto dal mare, della parte di sotto era di biancho e nero machiatta, era assai bruta & mirabile & fu portata inanzi il sereniss[imo] RE di portoguesi.”
In the year 1542, in the month of April, the fishermen of Lisbon caught in the ocean sea a turtle, which I myself saw and drew, as can be seen here beside this text. It was seven and a half feet long, and nine feet wide from one horn (or fin?) to the other. It had a shell shaped like a lute, black in color; in short, it was made entirely as Pliny describes the turtles found among the Troglodytes. However, some believed that it was not a turtle, but another animal or a sea monster produced by the sea. Underneath it was spotted white and black, it was quite ugly and remarkable, and it was brought before his serene highness the King of Portugal.
Alongside this annotation are three detailed drawings of this creature, likely a leatherback turtle, placed directly next to the relevant passage in Pliny’s encyclopedia. Elsewhere in the margins, a reader drew the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza, next to the section of the book with Pliny’s descriptions of these monuments. These drawings and the numerous annotations, in more than one language and likely from multiple hands, found in various sections of the book, show how readers used both text and image to connect ancient knowledge with contemporary experience.
Drawings of the Sphinx and the Pyramids of Giza (Book XXXVI – leaf CCXLVIII). Books XXXIII-XXXVII cover materials and applied arts, highlighting the role of minerals and stones in making metalwork, statues, sculpture, and gemstones.
Together, the translation, woodcuts, and marginal annotations reveal how Natural History functioned as a living book. Pliny’s encyclopedia was not only read, it was questioned, illustrated, updated, and personalized. These traces remind us that knowledge is shaped through the interplay of texts, images, and lived experience.
For modern researchers, books like this are invaluable. They reveal not only what people knew about the natural world, but how knowledge was shared over time. Marginal notes document early attempts to identify species and reconcile classical authorities with new discoveries from travel and exploration. The presence of drawings alongside text shows how observation and visual evidence became central to scientific understanding. Preserved in Special Collections, volumes like Pliny’s Natural History remain essential sources for understanding how modern scientific thinking emerged and why the dialogue between past knowledge and present observation still matters today.
Join Professor Guyda Armstrong (University of Manchester) and Dr Giles Bergel (University of Oxford) for an interactive workshop showcasing new digital methods for studying early modern printing. This session will introduce the research questions and first findings of Envisioning Dante c. 1472-1630: Seeing and Reading the Early Printed Page, funded by the UK government (c. £1 million; 2022-25). Participants will be given practical, hands-on demonstrations of the techniques and new digital tools developed by the project for analyzing and comparing early printed books.
This exhibition highlights stories of survival, contemplation, competition, protest, and learning, from six distinct collections in Rare Books and Special Collections. Each section, presented by a different subject curator, focuses on an example of how people over time and in different places, construct community and cultivate hope.
Curated by Rachel Bohlmann, Ph.D. (Curator, American History and American Studies), Gregory Bond, Ph.D. (Curator, Joyce Sports Research Collection), David T. Gura, Ph.D. (Curator, Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts), Matthew Knight, Ph.D. (Irish Studies Librarian and Curator), Natasha Lyandres (Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections), and Payton Phillips Quintanilla, Ph.D. (Librarian and Curator for Latin American and Iberian Studies).
This and other exhibits within the Hesburgh Libraries are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment.
This exhibit traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.
This exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale, Comparative Literature doctoral candidate). Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame) and Jacob Blakesley (Sapienza Università di Roma) served as consultants on the exhibit.
MSH/LAT 0095 (Luz de Sagaceta)
The current spotlight exhibits are Social media networks in the 19th and 20th centuries/ Las redes sociales de los siglos XIX y XX, curated by the students (Bella Barraza, Isabella Cioffi, Ryan Farrell, Meghan Garrity, Luke Grantz, Sophia Hohman, Marshall Horton, Ella Johnson, Kate Kirwan, Elizabeth Larsen, Felipe Nino, Thomas Phillips, Monica Schleg and Jhoseline Trejo) enrolled in ROSP 40790, Women’s Culture in 19th-Century Latin America, taught by Vanesa Miseres Ph.D., and Bibliomania: The Library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, curated by Anne Elise Crafton (2024-2025 Rare Books and Special Collections Postdoctoral Research Fellow).
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.
RBSC will be closed December 2 from 11:00am–2:30pm for the Hesburgh Libraries and ND Press Christmas Luncheon, and during the University of Notre Dame’s Christmas Break, December 24, 2025–January 2, 2026.
This exhibit traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.
Drop in to one of this month’s Exhibit Open Houses to meet and speak informally with one of the curators of the fall exhibition, Mapping Global Dante in Translation. Learn how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Divine Comedy over the centuries and across the world and discover the Library’s many Dante editions.
This exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame, Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale, Comparative Literature doctoral candidate). Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame) and Jacob Blakesley (Sapienza Università di Roma) served as consultants on the exhibit.
Opening November 5, our next spotlight exhibit will feature several friendship albums being studied this semester by Notre Dame students in a class taught by Vanesa Miseres (Romance Languages & Literatures).
This exhibition traces the global journey of Dante’s masterpiece through rare and valuable printed editions, highlighting how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Commedia. These volumes reveal a dynamic dialogue between Dante’s poetry and the world. A global literary perspective transforms Dante from a monumental yet isolated figure of the European Middle Ages into a central presence in the ongoing international conversation about humanity, the universe, time, eternity, and the power of literature.
The exhibit is curated by Salvatore Riolo (Notre Dame Italian Studies doctoral candidate), and co-curators Giulia Maria Gliozzi (Notre Dame Italian Studies doctoral candidate); Inha Park (Notre Dame Italian Studies doctoral candidate); and Peter Scharer (Yale Comparative Literature doctoral candidate).
Theodore J. Cachey Jr., Notre Dame, and Jacob Blakesley, Sapienza Università di Roma, served as consultants on the exhibit.
Events
Drop in to meet and speak informally with one of the exhibition’s curators. Learn how translators, artists, and printers have popularized and reshaped the Divine Comedy over the centuries and across the world and discover some of the Library’s many Dante editions.
Tours of the exhibit may be arranged for classes and other groups by contacting rarebook@nd.edu.
All exhibits are free and open to the public during business hours.This and other exhibits within the library are generously supported by the McBrien Special Collections Endowment. This exhibit is co-sponsored by the Center for Italian Studies and the Devers Program in Dante Studies.
