The RARA collection in the Library of the Academy of Music of the University of Zagreb

Knjižnica Muzičke akademije Sveučilišta u Zagrebu osnovana je 1921. Danas predstavlja najveću i najstariju visokoškolsku glazbenu knjižnicu u Hrvatskoj, a u svojem fondu, osim raznovrsne građe za potrebe nastave, čuva i iznimno vrijednu zbirku stare i rijetke građe. Zbirka RARA okuplja stare i rijetke tiskovine i rukopise koji predstavljaju hrvatsku kulturnu baštinu, a među njima nalazimo mnoga rijetka izdanja starih tiskovina (od kojih najstarije izdanje datira iz 1513. godine) te brojne autografe hrvatskih skladatelja. Iz starih rukopisnih inventarnih knjiga Knjižnice saznajemo kako i kada su primjerci pristigli u fond – dok su neki pristigli raznim donacijama i legatima glazbenika i članova njihovih obitelji, dio je pristigao otkupom od prethodnih vlasnika i antikvarijata. Cilj je ovog rada predstaviti zbirku RARA te ukazati na njezinu vrijednost i značaj. Osim digitaliziranih primjeraka građe, rad donosi i osvrt na nekoliko primjeraka najznačajnije građe iz zbirke: najstarije tiskovine i tiskovine domaćih izdavača te najstariju rukopisnu građu. The Library of the Academy of Music of the University of Zagreb was founded in 1921. Today, it is the largest and the oldest higher education music library in Croatia. The Library collects the various music sources for teaching purposes, and it also keeps an extremely valuable collection of old and rare materials – the RARA collection. This collection consists of old and rare prints and manuscripts, which are of great importance for Croatian musical and cultural heritage. The collection consists of many rare editions of old prints (the oldest edition dates back to 1513) and numerous autographs of Croatian composers. Some information about these copies can also be found in Library's old inventory books. While some copies were donated by musicians and their family members, some of them were purchased from their previous owners and antique shops. The main aim of this thesis is to present the RARA collection and to point out some of the most important copies from the collection: the oldest prints, editions of local publishers and manuscripts.