‘Hendrik Fagel the Younger (1765–1838), Greffier or Chief Minister of Holland, had the misfortune to have his property seized by invading French forces in the winter of 1794–5, but managed to secure the release of his family art collection and library, which were shipped to him in London in 1798. Being in straitened circumstances he decided to sell them and negotiations took place for the purchase of the library for Trinity College.’ So begins Charles Benson’s introduction to Frozen in Time, a collection of the papers presented at the recent Fagel Symposium, held at Trinity College, Dublin, with the explicit purpose of making this astonishing resource better known outside College walls. During their two centuries of public service to the States-General and Holland, the Fagel family built up one of the most important private libraries in early modern Europe, with holdings in history, politics and law as well as every other area of human endeavour: belles lettres, philosophy and theology, geography and travel, natural history and the visual arts. This lavishly illustrated volume contains a selection of the papers presented at the symposium as well as new articles, covering subjects as diverse as early Dutch book collections and plans of the cosmos, botanical sales catalogues, pamphlets on the bloody 1641 Rebellion in Ireland, Italian Renaissance poetry and the vicissitudes of the Huguenots. As the first comprehensive study of this hugely important and hitherto relatively unknown collection – one of the most important private libraries in early modern Europe – the volume will be of immense value to scholars and general readers.
