H. KENNETH SNIPES BYZANTINE STUDIES COLLECTION
ARIT is privileged to be the recipient of an important and unique library in
Byzantine studies. Added to our strong existing resources in the Turkish and Ottoman
fields, this choice collection of some 4500 volumes of monographs and journals enormously
increases the size of ARIT's holdings in the Byzantine area. ARIT's library becomes
without question one of the best libraries in Turkey for research into Byzantine literary
and intellectual history. Its particular strength lies in textual studies: it will be
unparalleled for its collection of Byzantine-period texts, for its catalogues of
manuscript collections in libraries around the world, and for its guides to Greek
palaeography.
This
library is a gift to ARIT given by Douglas Mearns from the estate of Dr. H. Kenneth
Snipes, an American scholar of Classical and Byzantine studies. Mr. Mearns felt it
particularly appropriate that this invaluable research tool should be housed in Istanbul,
the capital of the Byzantine Empire for all of its long existence.
Recent donations of books and our librarian's expertise are helping to enhance and improve the ARIT Istanbul Library's holdings in Byzantine Studies.
