The Library of the Duke of Aumale

Association de Sauvegarde de Chantilly et de son Environnement

Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale (1822-1897)

The son of Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, king of the French, the duke of Aumale was a distinguished bibliophile having formed an amazing collection of rare books which became one of the best private libraries of the XIXth century.

Aumale’s Library and vast fortune was based on the inheritance from the last of the Condés – Prince Louis-Henri-Joseph, duke of Bourbon (1756-1830) who died without children in rather mysterious circumstances.
The princes of Condé possessed a very rich Library, which included a superb collection of manuscripts, confiscated by the Revolution in 1792, on account of the then prince of Condé, Louis-Joseph (1736-1818) anti-revolutionary activities in exile. Chantilly’s precious collections was sent to the Louvre, the estate was ravaged the château and other buildings were sold and partially demolished.
Fortunately, the library and other collections were partially returned to the prince in 1815, after the Restoration of Louis XVIII. The prince of Condé son, Louis-Joseph, duke of Bourbon, saw his heir and son – the duke of Enghien, being executed by order of Napoleon at the instigation of the infamous Talleyrand at Vincennes in 1804 and decided to leave his vast fortune to his grand-nephew and godson the young duke of Aumale.
After a brief career in the Army, having fought in Algeria, the duke had to leave France with his family after the Revolution of 1848 which put an end to the Orléans July Monarchy. They went to England where they lived from 1848 to 1870, and it was then that he started building his collection through acquisitions all over Europe and at the important auction sales of books that luckily for him took place in the second half of the century. Illuminated manuscripts, including precious XVth century Book of Hours, and incunabula merited his particular attention (see, an on-line presentation of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, which belongs to the duke of Aumale collection).
After his return to France, the duke had the château and park (designed by André Le Notre, by command of Louis II de Bourbon-Condé (1621-1686) - the Grand Condé) rebuilt, and in order to properly house his Library ordered architect Honoré Daumet to build a Cabinet des Livres, which still today can be visited and admired.
Contrary to the usual destiny of private Libraries formed by wealthy bibliophiles, we owe to the duke of Aumale having prevented this by donating his Library and the château de Chantilly to the Institut de France. The year after the duke’s death the Condé Museum was open to the public (see, Bibliothèque du château de Chantilly).
Links:
to Bibliothèques privées, bibliothèques de collectionneurs at the Google Group – Forum Livres Anciens (in French)
Short biography at the Académie Française website
Château de Chantilly (in English)

Sir Samuel Wilson

Sir Samuel Wilson (1832-1895), Hughenden Manor

«From the Earl of Beaconfiled's Library»

Born at Ballycloughan, County Antrim, Ireland, son of Samuel Wilson, farmer and landowner, and his wife Mary, née Singley. In 1861, in Melbourne, he married Jean, daughter of William Campbell.

In 1852 immigrated with is brothers to Victoria, Australia where he lived working in mines and then in sheep farming. After having built a considerable fortune he retired to England in 1881, having leased Hughenden Manor, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, former country house of prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. His son Lieut.-colonel Gordon Chesney Wilson married Lady Sarah Isabella Churchill, sister of Lord Randolph Churchill and a daughter, Maud Wilson, married the 14th Earl of Huntingdon.

Sir Samuel was M.P. Portsmouth in 1886-92.

Sources: see, detailed biography at Australian Dictionary of Biography with bibliography and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Wilson_(pastoralist)
See, Hughenden Manor gardens

Oliver Garnett, Hughenden Manor, National Trust Guidebooks.

Matthias Corvinus Library

The Library of Mathias Corvino, King of Hungary (1443-1490)

Matthias Corvino (1443-1490), crowned King of Hungary in 1458 upon the death of Ladislaus V and in 1469 king of Bohemia and ruler of Moravia, Silesia and Lusatia. Second son of the legendary Hungarian national hero János Hunyadi (c.1385-1456), leader of the resistance against the Turks, regent of Hungary after the disastrous Battle of Varna, and the victor of the Turks at the battle of Belgrade in 1458, which postponed the Turkish menace over central Europe for seven decades.
Apart from his military successes and conquests, Matthias formed one of the best Humanist Libraries of XVth. Century Europe, second only in number of volumes, to the Vatican Library. Many reputed scholars were called to Buda from Naples, Florence and other Italian cities.
His second marriage, in 1476, to Princess Beatrice of Aragon (1457-1508) daughter of Ferdinand King of Naples, who also had an important library, was a landmark in the development of the king’s library. She was to marry secondly, Wladyslaw / Ulaszlo II (b.1456), who succeeded as king of Hungary (1490-1516).
For a detailed account of the origins and development of this fabulous library see, the Bibliotheca Corviniana Digitalis Website (in Hungarian and Italian) – an ambitious international project aiming to digitally rebuilt the former King Mathias Corvino Library.
For a scholarly analysis on the history of the Bibliotheca Corviniana see also, Csaba Csapodi’s paper at: Bibliotheca Corviniana: The library of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, Shannon: Irish University Press (1969)
In 2002-2003 a major exhibition took place at the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, at Modena, Italy, with a catalogue that includes important papers on the subject, see, NEL SEGNO DEL CORVO, libri e miniature della biblioteca di Mattia Corvino re d’Ungheria (1443-1490), Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitária, 15 novembre 2002 - 15 febbraio 2003, Modena, Il Bulino edizioni d’arte, 2002 (in .pdf).