April 9, 2011

Course 

THE CATHEDRAL OF PAMPLONA. A VIEW FROM THE 21ST CENTURY

visit to the Library Services Capitular

Mr. Julio Gorricho Moreno.
Doctor in Ecclesiastical History

One of the sessions of the course "The Cathedral of Pamplona. A look from the XXI century" counted on the visit to the Library Services Capitular of the Pamplona Cathedral, directed by Mr. Julio Gorricho, doctor in Ecclesiastical History, space of the cathedral that remains closed to the public and that exceptionally was opened to show its bibliographic treasures to those registered to the cycle. issue Given the high number of attendees to the course, which exceeded one hundred people, the visit was done in groups in order to be able to follow the explanations more comfortably, even being able to browse, with the permission of the librarian, the pages of some of the exceptional manuscript and printed volumes that are exposed in some of the showcases of the bookshop.

Gorricho began his explanation by recounting the history of the chapter's Library Services , which began in 1086, when the cathedral chapter introduced community life in the cathedral, bookshop which grew over the centuries, mainly thanks to donations of books from the canons themselves. At present it has 135 codices, 141 incunabula and 15,000 ancient and historical volumes, mostly the result of the aforementioned canonical bequests, as is a good example of the recent incorporation of the former archivist-librarian and historian Don José Goñi Gaztambide (†2002) to the bookshop of the Library Services staff . 

Among the bulk of the volumes that make up the Library Services, the Pamplona Missal, the medieval breviaries (XIV-XV centuries), the Gospels (XIII century), the Hebrew Bible (XV century) and the Commentary to Book III of the Sentences of St. Thomas, among others, stand out. 

In 1760 Don Pedro Fermín de Jáuregui, archdeacon of the Chamber, promoted the remodeling of the chapter house Library Services , whose bookshelf with rich rococo finishes was made by Silvestre de Soria, a Navarrese trained in Madrid, and gilded by Pedro Antonio de Rada.

For some years now, the computerized cataloguing of Library Services has been underway and is being uploaded to the Collective Catalogue of the Bibliographic Heritage.
 

Don Julio Gorricho showing some of the printed copies preserved in the Library Services Capitular of the Cathedral of Pamplona to the attendees of visit