In 2025, the National Library of Spain added 625 items valued at 484,170 euros to its collections.
Additionally, 65,917 items were received as donations, with a total value of 282,560 euros.
The National Library of Spain (BNE), with the aim of enriching and updating Spain’s bibliographic and documentary heritage, acquires new items of unique value each year to complete this heritage and ensure its preservation and dissemination. In addition to the existing collections, the Library purchases rare and special documents using its own institutional budget, incorporates acquisitions made by the Ministry of Culture on its behalf, and receives works donated by individuals and institutions. In 2025, acquisitions reached a total value of €484,170, while donations amounted to €282,560.
Among the acquisitions are a portolan chart from the late 16th century, a collection of documents by the Álvarez Quintero brothers and a collection of clandestine erotic publications.
In 2025, using funds from its budget, the BNE acquired 466 documents, worth 186,175 euros, including unique or extremely rare works with very few known copies.
Notable among the new additions is a collection of documents by Joaquín and Serafín Álvarez Quintero, comprising 36 autograph manuscripts, as well as eight typewritten works and 15 original pen-and-ink drawings by the Álvarez Quintero brothers themselves, in addition to 32 original works by other contemporary writers. This addition offers researchers a new opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of their work.
A collection of 291 Spanish erotic magazines – published clandestinely due to their content – from the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century is also worth noting. These are unique and rare volumes of great interest to Spain’s bibliographic heritage.
The Ministry of Culture acquired 159 items for the BNE’s collections, at a total cost of 297,995 euros.
The most valuable is a Mediterranean portolan chart dating from the late 16th to early 17th century. It is a hand-drawn map on vellum and illuminated in green, red, blue, and sepia. Although the work is anonymous and undated, it shares some of the characteristics of the maps drawn by the Oliva family, a prominent family of cartographers from Mallorca island.
Last year 65,917 items were received as donations, with a total value of 282,560 euros. In total, 383 donations from 402 donors were processed. By source, 44 came from Spanish public institutions, 149 from foreign donors and 190 from Spanish donors or those residing in Spain.
The types of materials received are very diverse and include both physical and digital media, as well as non-book items.
Among notable acquisitions is a “Romancero general: en que se contienen todos los romances que andan impresos”, printed by Juan de la Cuesta in 1604 (bequeathed to the BNE by María de los Ángeles Martínez Álvarez) and an “Álbum de señoritas” from 1840–1850 containing autograph texts by, amongst others, Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Ventura de la Vega, José Amador de los Ríos and Manuel Fernández y González, as well as original drawings of prominent figures of the period, donated by Bernabé López García.
Every year, the Friends of the National Library of Spain Foundation (FABNE) contributes to the enrichment of the BNE’s collections by purchasing and subsequently donating items of particular heritage value. In 2025, the Foundation donated to the Library a handwritten deck of playing cards from 1755, an 18th-century choral book from Córdoba, a manuscript archive relating to the publication of the works of Leandro Fernández de Moratín in 1830 and 1831, and a copy of “Celestina.Tragicomedia de Calisto et Melibea”, by Fernando de Rojas, printed in Venice by Francesco Caron in 1525.
More information about the acquired works:
The National Library of Spain will add 65,917 donated items to its collections in 2025.