Museo del Prado offers free online access to more than 11,500 publications from late 15th century to early 20th century

beSpacific 2024-09-20

“The new Digital Library of the Museo del Prado, developed with funds from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), offers free access to 5600 magazine issues and 6,000 books specializing in artistic literature and published between the end of the 15th and early 20th centuries. More than 1,700,000 pages have been digitized, the cataloguing of 1,400 ancient books has been reviewed and 220 other rare books and 2,000 prints contained in the drawing booklets have been catalogued. In many cases, these rare books have been written or illustrated with prints by painters such as Durero, Rubens, Giordano, Anibale Carracci, José de Madrazo, Goya, Paret, Federico de Madrazo, Fortuny, Hogarth, Doré or Toulouse-Lautrec. This virtual space, in addition to promoting the preservation of bibliographical backgrounds by reducing their use and manipulation, becomes an essential tool for historical artistic research and has been incorporated into Worldcat, the largest collective catalogue of art libraries and museums worldwide managed by OCLC, and Art Discovery Group Catalogue.