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The Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection (Danish: Den Arnamagnæanske Samling; Icelandic: Handritasafn Árna Magnússonar) takes its name from the Icelandic scholar and antiquarian Árni Magnússon (1663–1730), known in Latinised form as Arnas Magnæus. Born in Iceland in 1663, Magnússon travelled to Copenhagen to study theology and later became professor of Danish antiquities at the University of Copenhagen. He also served as secretary of the Royal Archives. Over the course of his life, he amassed one of the most significant collections of medieval manuscripts ever assembled by a private individual, with a particular focus on Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish material. Shortly before his death in 1730, Magnússon bequeathed his collection of manuscripts, printed books, and his personal fortune to the University of Copenhagen. A great fire in Copenhagen in 1728 destroyed a significant portion of his printed books but left most of the manuscripts intact.
From 1732 the collection was housed in the University Library. In 1956 the Arnamagnæan Institute (Det Arnamagnæanske Institut, later renamed Den Arnamagnæanske Samling) was formally established as a dedicated research centre under the University of Copenhagen to care for and advance scholarly study of the manuscripts. The collection was subsequently enlarged through smaller supplementary acquisitions, including the collections of Danish linguist Rasmus Rask and Icelandic chief justice Magnús Stephensen.
Following Iceland's constitutional separation from Denmark in 1944, successive Icelandic governments petitioned for the return of Icelandic manuscripts held in Copenhagen. After protracted negotiations, the Danish parliament voted to transfer a substantial portion of the Icelandic manuscripts to Iceland. The first consignment was dispatched to Reykjavík in June 1973, and the final transfer was completed in June 1997. Altogether, approximately 1,666 manuscripts—along with all Icelandic charters and apographa—were transferred to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies at the University of Iceland. The decision was regarded internationally as a precedent-setting act of cultural restitution by a former colonial power.
In its entirety the collection comprises approximately 3,000 manuscript items dated from the twelfth to the eighteenth centuries. Around 1,400 manuscripts remain in Copenhagen, while the remainder are in Reykjavík. The Copenhagen holdings include many of the oldest surviving Icelandic manuscripts, as well as approximately 250 Norwegian, 250 Danish, 30 Swedish, and 100 manuscripts of other Continental European provenance. In addition to the manuscripts proper, the collection includes approximately 14,000 Icelandic, Norwegian (including Faroese, Shetland, and Orcadian), and Danish charters, both originals and first-hand copies (apographa). A photographic collection documents all manuscripts that were transferred to Iceland, as well as Icelandic manuscripts held in other collections such as the Royal Library in Stockholm, Uppsala University Library, the British Library, and the National Library of Iceland.
The manuscripts preserve texts across a wide range of genres: sagas, poetry, legal codes, historical writings, astronomical and medical texts, religious literature, and translations from Latin. The collection also holds an important body of diplomas from Danish estates, among them records from the Ravnholt estate in Funen dating as far back as the early fifteenth century.
Among the most significant items in the collection are some of the oldest extant Icelandic vellum manuscripts, dating from the twelfth century. Scholarly publications issued by the institute include the series Bibliotheca Arnamagnæana and Editiones Arnamagnæanæ, as well as the digital edition series Editiones Arnamagnæanæ Electronicæ. The institute maintains the collaborative manuscript database handrit.org in partnership with the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík.
In July 2009 the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register in recognition of its outstanding historical significance.
Access to the manuscript collection is available by appointment. Researchers may email the Arnamagnæan Institute specifying which manuscripts they wish to consult and their preferred date. The institute also participates in an annual summer school in manuscript studies, held alternately in Copenhagen and Reykjavík, and is a partner in the Nordic Master's Programme in Viking and Medieval Norse Studies. Note: as of recent reports, the institute building has been temporarily closed due to mould; the manuscript collection itself is unaffected, but new digital image orders and reading-room access are currently unavailable pending remediation.