Research guides: Images and Visual Resource Collections: Manuscripts & Rare Books

Collections

British Library: Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts
Gallica
Digitized manuscripts from the Bibliotheque nationale de France, Paris.

Index of Medieval Art This link opens in a new window
UT licensed collection. Manuscripts from Pierpont Morgan Library digitized and in Index of Christian Art.

Medieval Manuscript Collections
Links to major manuscript collections and libraries.
Newgate Calendar Illustrations
Illustrations from classical books.
New York Public Library
NYPL Digital Gallery provides free and open access to over 700,000 images digitized from the The New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs and more.
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Copyright Protection:

Images provided by NYPL may still be under copyright and protected by the intellectual property laws of the United States and the Berne Convention.

You are solely responsible for clearing the copyright with the rights holder. Requests for reproductions of copyrighted images will not be processed until you have obtained written clearance of such rights from the rights holder or you have completed to NYPL’s satisfaction a “best efforts” search to locate the rights holder.

You agree to provide each reproduction of an image with a credit line that will be supplied to you in the written Permissions statement that you will receive.
NDL Rare Books Image Database
Colourful images (approx. 37,000 items) from the collections of the National Diet Library, Japan published mostly in the Edo Period.
UT Collection of Manuscript Fragments
Collection of 190 pieces of vellum in Greek and Latin illustrating the history and development of handwriting from the 4th century until the end of the Middle Ages. Items 1-21 (which are Coptic in origin) illustrate the development of uncial writing from the beginning up to its decline in Egypt in the 9th century. A detailed finding aid is available in the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.
Yale University Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Online Collections
Search for photographs, textual documents, illuminated manuscripts, maps, works of art, and books from the Beinecke's collections. Some materials in this database may be protected by U.S. or international copyright laws or by privacy and publicity rights. Please see Permissions and Copyright for more information.
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he Beinecke welcomes you to use materials in the public domain and to make fair use of copyrighted materials as defined by copyright law.

Public Domain: You do not need to obtain permission to use materials in the public domain. (Cornell University publishes a chart that may help you to identify what is and is not in the public domain in the United States.)

Fair Use: The United States copyright law contains an exception for fair use of copyrighted materials, which includes the use of protected materials for certain purposes of teaching, scholarship, research, criticism, commentary, and news reporting. For guidelines on the fair use exception, please refer to the Website of the United States Copyright Office.

You are solely responsible for determining whether your use is fair and for responding to any claims that may arise from your use. By using materials from the Website, you agree and warrant that your use will not violate the rights of the Beinecke or any other person or entity. If you use or reproduce our materials in any format, we ask that the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library always be cited as the source of the material with the appropriate credit line found at the bottom of this page.