Cyrillic manuscripts
There are around 90 manuscripts in the Collection. The oldest Cyrillic manuscripts date back to the 13th century: an excerpt from The Apostle’s Gospel written on leather and the Psalter which was found in the village called Pecari near Bela Crkva in Raska. Of the numerous manuscripts written in Cyrillic between the 14th and the 17th century, the most important ones are The Liturgical Book for March and April from 1344 to 1345, the oldest copy of Praise to St. Simeon and St. Sava by Theodosius written in the second half of the 14th century, the Four Gospels from the mid 15th century, the manuscript of the Dušan’s Code from Baranja written at the beginning of the 16th century and the Panegyric written in 1595 in the monastery of St. Trinity near Pljevlja and other.
Oriental manuscripts
The collection of manuscripts in oriental languages consists of 397 manuscripts in 633 volumes written in Arabic (498), Ottoman (126) and Persian (9). The oldest manuscript dates back to 1206. Mostly written on our territory, these manuscripts are usually from the field of law, history, literature, philosophy etc. All manuscripts in this collection were scanned and included in the University Library Electronic Catalogue and into the European Electronic Library Europeana Libraries.
The oldest printed books
The oldest printed books dating back to the 15th century are called incunabula. One should mention Octoechos First and Pslams printed in Cetinje in 1494 and Biblia Latina from Nuremberg from 1477 which was hand-decorated. The collection of books called Srbulje from the 16th century is a very important part of this Collection. They were printed in Venice, Gracanica, Sebes, Mileseva, Mrksa’s Church, Skadar, Trgoviste and Belgrade. The invaluable sample in this Collection is the Octoechos printed in Gracanica in 1539 which has an exceptionally rare illustration – woodcut of the Monastery Gracanica on the first page. The original of the Four Gospels printed in Belgrade in 1552 is also very significant in this Collection is very well-preserved.
Books in foreign languages from the 16th and 17th century
Books in foreign languages make the significant part of the University Library Old and Rare Book Collection. Here we mention only the most important ones: the first edition of De institutione bene vivendi by Marko Marulic printed in Venice in 1506, Chronicorum turcicorum with a carving of the Belgrade Fortress printed in Frankfurt am Main in 1578, Ptolemy’s La Geografia printed in Venice in 1574, Il Regno degli Slavi by Marvo Orbini from 1601, the famous Mercator Atlas printed in Amsterdam in 1630 which includes a map of Serbia.
Books from the 18th century
Of the many books from the 18th century, we should mention Stemmatographia by Christopher Zefarovic printed in Vienna in 1741, Bukvar by Zaharije Orfelin (Venice,1767), Zivot i prikljucenija by Dositej Obradovic (Leipzig, 1783), The History of the Various Slavic People by Jovan Rajic (Vienna, 1794), the first Serbian journal (Slaveno-serbski magazin) by Zaharije Orfelin published in Venice in 1768 and the first Serbian newspaper (Slaveno-serbske vjedomosti) printed in Vienna from 1792 to 1794.
Books from the 19th century
This part of the Collection is very important and it contains a great number of books : Vukova pjesmarica and Pismenica (Vienna, 1814), the first works of Djuro Danicic, Branko Radicevic, Njegos, Preradovic and Svetozar Markovic. There is also the only preserved original edition of the Constitution of the Principality of Serbia, the so-called Sretenje Constitution, published in Kragujevac 1835.
Periodicals
The preserved periodicals are the following: Zabavnik from 1834 by Dimitrije Davidovic, the first issue of Srpske Novine published in Kragujevac in 1834, Novine Serbske published in Vienna in 1813 and edited by Davidovic and Frusica, Šumadinka by Ljuba Nenadovic published in 1850, Danica ilirska by Ljudevit Gaj from 1836, printed in Zagreb and many others.
Archival materials
A valuable archival materials collection contains letters and documents created between the late 17th and 20th century. The largest part of the collection is personal correspondence of the renowned people of the time with 4,000 units and approximately 22,000 printed pages.
Maps and atlases
The collection of maps and atlases contains old maps which portray our history. The most attractive ones are engravings (Belgrade urban plans from the 18th century).
The process of digitization of the most valuable rare publications and archival materials is underway, and they are successively included in the digital repository and electronic catalogues.