The National Library's extensive heritage
The library's collection is comprised of more than 30,000 manuscripts, nearly 3,000 incunabula, about 500,000 samples of printed documents dating back to before 1831, over 6,000,000 modern monographs, nearly 110,000 magazine titles and a newspaper collection estimated to consist of nearly 20,000 newspapers. The collection of printed scores and manuscripts is comprised of over 500,000 works, there are over 550,000 sound documents recorded on various kinds of media held by the library and the audio-visual collection contains over 80,000 volumes.
Some of these collections have been maintained, while others have been redistributed into various depositories, generally for reasons of space. They are currently housed in two buildings located in Madrid and Alcalá de Henares, and are available at both sites.
Engravings and drawings
Velázquez, Diego (1599-1660). Head of a young woman
The collection of engravings, drawings, posters and photographs consists of the following: over 100,000 loose prints and another 600,000 engravings in books; over 45,000 original drawings, and therefore one of the most important collections of drawings in the country in terms of the quality and quantity of their design, nearly 800,000 posters and over two million photographs; furthermore, the Ephemera and Ex Libris Collection contains nearly two-hundred thousand images covering a wide variety of typologies, subjects and techniques
The National Library's collection of original drawings, which is housed in the Drawings and Engravings Service, is comprised of over 20,000 works and is one of the most important in the country in terms of the quality and quantity of its assets.
Regarding the Spanish school, the original work of artists such as El Greco, Velázquez, Alonso Cano, Murillo, Claudio Coello, Paret, Salvador Carmona, Ventura Rodríguez, Villanueva, Goya, Alenza and Fortuny, among others, live side by side with modern avant-garde painters such as José Caballero, Julio González, Vázquez Díaz, Benjamín Palencia, Manolo Millares, Eusebio Sempere, etc.
Cartographic Collections
L´Espange Triomphante sous le regne de Philippe V. Paris, 1705
The Cartographic Service holds an important collection of antique and modern cartographic assets from all over the world with more than 134,000 maps, the majority of which are from Spain; atlases and specialised works in Cartography, Geography, Astronomy, description of landscapes and travel writings, and a collection of over 500,000 postcards of cities and other geographic sites.
The original documentary base of the Cartographic Service of the National Library comes from the Royal Library and the cartographic collections of the Old Cabinet. Its core elements consisted of the so-called Mendoza Collection, the maps by the López family and the collection of manuscript maps, all of which comprise the antique map archive.
The Cervantes Collection
Illustration of Quixote by Miciano
The Cervantes Collection holds twenty-six Spanish editions of Quixote dating back to the 17th century and some valuable 20th century editions. It also contains all kinds of interesting items: imitations, sequels, plays on Cervantes, studies, conferences, catalogues, bibliographies, etc.
Today the collection contains 5,146 volumes and 50 boxes of pamphlets under the call number Cerv., and 8,853 volumes and 138 boxes under the call number Cerv. Sedó .