On Monday, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Alain Barset, visited the Vilnius University Library.
Library staff showed the guest around the Pranciškus Smuglevičius Hall and spoke about its history. The high-ranking official was also introduced to treasures preserved in the library’s collections, some of which are connected with Switzerland—A. Barset’s home country.
Among the rarities shown to the guest were views of the cities of Fribourg and Geneva (1650 and 1730–40), the Grand Duchy of Lithuania map by M. K. Radvila Našlaitėlis (1636), the first edition of the book “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres” (1543) by the most famous Polish astronomer, M. Copernicus, philosophy theses intended for public defence (1675), and part of a 30-volume work devoted to Switzerland—the most comprehensive publication of its time about Switzerland (1654).
