On Thursday Oct. 12, Mr. Bourland’s Astronomy class made a visit to the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia (UVA). This is where the most rare and valuable books the university owns are kept; none of the books in this collection are permitted to leave the building but they may be read on site by any registered scholar. The class scheduled its visit weeks in advance and was assigned a private librarian who is knowledgeable about books from the early modern era and how they were produced.
The true goal of the field trip was to view a second edition of Copernicus’ revolutionary book De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium which explains his theory that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the universe. The book at UVA was printed in Switzerland in 1566; only 325 of this second edition are known to exist today.
Students were able to view and touch other written rarities such as:
- Babylonian clay tablets written in cuneiform about 4,500 years old.
- one of two extant copies of Christopher Columbus’ announcement of his discovery of the New World written in 1493.
- a miniature book the size of your thumbnail from the 1600’s.
- one of the first “affordable” Bibles written by hand (manuscript) from the late 1200’s.
- a page of the famous Gutenberg Bible printed in 1455.
- A fragment of a papyrus sales receipt from ca. 180 A.D.
In what has become a secondary feature of this yearly journey, the class dined at the not-famous-enough White Spot diner on the University’s “Corner”. There they enjoyed the long-standing favorite GrillsWith fried doughnut dessert. The owner/chef told the class that making thirteen GrillsWiths at one time is a new record.
For more photos, click here.
