A batch of ancient books of Tianyige selected into the Catalog of National Rare Books of China

Category: Ningbo News
Published: Monday, 27 July 2020 14:22

Illustrations in Jiajing Junzhou Chronicle (provided by Tianyige Museum)

It is learned in July 7 that 752 ancient books and 23 ancient book protection units in the country were selected into the Catalog of National Rare Books of China

and National Ancient Book Protection Units. Among them, 171 volumes of local chronicles of the Ming Dynasty from Ningbo Tianyige Museum were entered into the catalog and Ningbo Library and Yuyao Cultural Heritage Protection Center were selected into the national unites.

Tianyige Museum is among the first batch of National Ancient Book Protection Units and 5493 volumes of ancient books in the museum have been selected into the Catalog of National Rare Books of China. Most of the selected local chronicles of the Ming Dynasty are original versions and maintained the original bindings of the Ming Dynasty, 38 of them the only copy in China.

Jiajing Jianyang County Chronicle is an important material for studying the history of printing and publishing in the Ming Dynasty, reflecting the thriving publishing industry in Jianyang at that time. The colourful illustrations in Jiajing Junzhou Chronicle is very exquisite and has high artistic value, which is very rare in the local chronicle of the Ming dynasty. Ningbo Library now has more than 60,000 volumes of ancient books, including more than 9,000 copies of rare books, and 11 books have been selected for the Catalog of Zhejiang Rare Books. Localization is a major feature of Ningbo Library. Many of these books were written by people from Zhejiang, are related to Zhejiang or were engraved in Zhejiang. For example, Tongzhi Xiangshan Chronicle is very rare in China and is only collected in Ningbo Library and Nanjing University Library. Currently, the Catalogue of Ancient Books in Ningbo Library and the Catalogue of books of the Republic of China in Ningbo Library were published.

The existing ancient books in Yuyao Cultural Heritage Protection Center are mainly from Lizhou Literature Library and Wugui Lou Library. Yuyao Cultural Heritage Protection Center collects more than 34000 ancient books, including more than 9000 rare books. Twelve ancient books were selected into the Catalog of Zhejiang Rare Books. One of them are the only collection in the world. Since the construction of the "Resource Database of Ancient Books in Lizhou Literature Library " in 2016, Yuyao Cultural Heritage Protection Center have continued to promote the digital management of ancient books to facilitate the public to read and do research on ancient books, in order to achieve ancient book sharing. It benefits the research on local finance in Junzhou in the Ming Dynasty