Westwood : UCLA Purchases Rare Books

UCLA purchased seven rare books at the recent auction of prized volumes from the Estelle Doheny Collection, library officials announced.

The books, all printed before 1501, include a work by St. Thomas Aquinas printed in Italy in 1470 and four volumes printed in Venice, Italy, in the late 1400s.

The books will become part of the UCLA Library’s Ahmanson-Murphy Collection of the First Century of Italian Printing, which contains more than 1,000 volumes.

The books were auctioned by Christie’s of London for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which inherited the collection of rare books, manuscripts and paintings from Estelle Doheny, wife of millionaire land developer and oil tycoon Edward Doheny.