DEPARTMENT OF PRINTED BOOKS. 21 



produces a total of 122,902 articles received in the depart- 

 ment in the course of the year. 



Additional Library Fittings and Exhibitions. — The 

 lobby outside the Banksian Library has been fitted with 

 shelving for the reception of Indian and Colonial official 

 documents, and screened from the public by a row of book- 

 cases filled with volumes of Specifications of Patents in 

 handsome bindings. Two large show-cases have been placed 

 in the King's Library for the exhibition of specimens of the 

 Tapling collection of postage stamps, which will be varied 

 from time to time until the most valuable portion of the 

 collection shall have been shown. Another show-case has 

 been provided for the temporary exhibition of recent acquisi- 

 tions of interest. The lower portion of a number of show- 

 cases already in the King's Library has been shelved and 

 glazed for the reception and exhibition of the great Chinese 

 Encyclopaedia acquired in 1877, which is bound in 748 

 volumes. 



Acquisitions of Special Interest. — The past year has been 

 remarkable, not so much for any one acquisition of extra- 

 ordinary importance, as for the great number and variety of 

 interesting additions in almost all branches of literature. 

 The absence of acquisitions on a large scale is partly owing 

 to the unusually small number of important sales by auction, 

 and the consequent want of opportunities for extensive pur- 

 chases. The chief sales of the year have taken place on the 

 Continent, and have afi'orded opportunities for enriching the 

 Museum collections with some choice accessions. One of 

 particular interest to English bibliographers, though itself 

 printed abroad, is the letter of Pope Sixtus IV. to the Doge 

 of Venice, February, 1483, the fifth of the Sex quam elegan- 

 tissimae epistolae printed by Caxton in 1483, the only known 

 copy of which was acquired by the Museum in 1890. This is 

 the only letter of the series known to have been printed in 

 Italy, and a comparison of it with Caxton's text renders it 

 probable that he printed from a manuscript. It was pur- 

 chased at the Borghese sale, with other interesting books. 

 Several important acquisitions were made at the sale of the 

 third portion of the Heredia Library at Paris, particularly the 

 Spanish translation of the travels of Sir John Mandeville, 

 Valencia, 1521, "the year of trouble," as the colophon says, in 

 allusion to the revolt of the commons headed by Padilla ; the 

 only perfect copy known. Fasciculus Temporum, B. Segura and 

 A. de Portu, Seville, 1480 ; said to be the first Spanish book in 

 which Arabic characters were employed. Boccaccio, Caida de 

 Prencipes, Toledo, 1511; the second edition of the Spanish trans- 

 lation of Boccaccio De Casibus Principum, with a fine engraving 

 on the title-page representing the Wheel of Fortune. Mirabilia 

 Urbis Romae, Rome, 1500 ; the edition specially brought out 



0.107. C as 



