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Columbus letter from 1493 is among historic materials donated
From top: Rare books like a first edition of The Atlantic Pilot (1772) and The Earliest Major Treatise on the Globe and Its Manufacture (1515) are among the valuable items in the Kislak Collection of the Early Americas, Exploration and Navigation. Select items will be displayed in the Kislak Gallery (rendering shown).
Photos Courtesy University Libraries
Assembled over the course of many decades, the Jay I. Kislak Foundation collection includes some of the most important original source materials related to the history of the early Americas. Now some of the collection’s rare books, maps, manuscripts, and other historic items have a permanent new home in Special Collections at the University of Miami’s Otto G. Richter Library.
Jay Kislak, prominent collector, philanthropist, and Miami resident for more than 60 years, and the Jay I. Kislak Foundation previously donated more than 3,000 rare books, maps, manuscripts and objects to the Library of Congress, whose Kislak Collection now forms the basis of a major exhibition and extensive scholarly and public programs in Washington, D.C.
In UM and Miami Dade College, Kislak identified local partners with the ability and desire to create similarly extensive educational and cultural programming in South Florida. The Kislak-UM-MDC partnership will encompass exhibitions, research, education and public outreach, all designed to serve students and faculty, community residents, and a global scholarly network. The overarching theme is exploration and cultural encounters, with particular emphasis on Florida, early American history, the cultures of the Caribbean and Latin America, and Polar exploration.
“The University of Miami is among the nation’s top 50 research institutions, with a library that draws scholars from around the world. With the recent inauguration of Dr. Julio Frenk, this is an ideal time to establish the permanent repository in South Florida to conserve our collections and make them available to scholars and students for generations to come,” said Kislak.
The Kislak gift represents a combined valuation of approximately $30 million. The collection includes over 2,300 books, maps, manuscripts, pre-Columbian artifacts, and other historic materials. UM and MDC have each received a selection of important items.
Highlights among the items coming to UM are a first edition of Christopher Columbus’s famous 1493 letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, in which the explorer described his momentous discovery of a new route to the Indies; a 1486 edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia; a 1521 volume describing Cuba, by Italian historian Peter Martyr d’Anghiera; a 1589 volume, The Principal Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation, by English writer Richard Hakluyt; a two-volume account of the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson after the Louisiana Purchase; and a manuscript map created for the 10-year-old Louis XV of France with a presentation inscription by Guillaume Delisle, royal geographer and personal geographer to the king.
“We are grateful to Jay Kislak for his extraordinary vision and lifelong devotion to creating a scholarly and culturally significant collection that showcases the rich history of Florida and the Caribbean,” UM President Frenk said.
The University is renovating its special collections center, to be renamed the Jay I. Kislak Center, envisioned as a hub of educational and cultural programming. It will include a new gallery for displaying a broad range of materials from the Kislak collection.
“For 500 years, Florida has been a focal point of global exploration and cultural exchange,” Kislak said. “I’m thrilled that Miami’s top two institutions of higher education, along with the Library of Congress and the University of Pennsylvania, will now be using our collections to reveal the fascinating and important role of our community in world history.”
