The University History Collection mainly includes tangible cultural heritage related to university representation, memorabilia from professors’ legacies, objects of use related to the rites and administration of the university.
Numismatic collection
The numismatic collection, which has a few hundred pieces, has some currency, but it contains mainly commemorative medals and plaques made for representational purposes.
Phaleristic collection
The phaleristic collection of the University History Collection is not large, but it represents a very important unit, because the various honors from the professors’ legacies handed over to the University Archives are placed here. In addition, some of the university badges have been placed in this unit.
Seal and stamp collection
The creation of the unit, called the seal and stamp collection, is the result of a planned collecting and currently consists of 300 pieces. The objects include seals with museum value and discarded rubber stamps used by the university’s various organizational units.
Textile collection
The textile collection contains barely a hundred, very varied objects: flags, tablecloths used by the university or donated to the university, sewn-on textile badges and ribbons from the old faculties, mourning ribbons, but even the T-shirts with the label Tuition Fee Stop in 2007, produced in several colours.
Photo collection
A digital copy of the photographs in the University History Collection can be browsed in the university repository.
The collection currently consists of 3,000 paper-based photographs and more than 10,000 negative frames (600 film rolls). The photographs were taken between 1890 and 2001, 300 pieces were taken before the World War II. The photo collection stored in the deposit is complemented by a smaller digital collection, as around 2001 photographers working at the university and documenting university events also switched to using digital cameras. The subject of the images in the photo collection is very diverse: portraits and group photos, various buildings of the university.
Gallery and small print collection
Some of the paintings and graphics are preserved in the University History Collection, and a small print collection has also been created. Leaflets, posters and invitations to university events are included in large numbers.
Educational tools collection
This collection includes maps, plaster copies of medieval seals, weights for scales and wall charts. Some objects from legacies can also be found here, as the collection includes, for example, hand-drawn maps and sketches by the geographer Tibor Mendöl (1905–1966).
Unique objects collection
The objects in this unit are very diverse. A significant part of them are decorations gifted to the university on the occasion of visits, conferences or anniversaries of the foundation, but there are also smaller objects of use that cannot be classified into other units.
In this unit, one of the oldest objects of the University History Collection, the Jesuit Biretta of Péter Pázmány, was placed as a relic. The biretta was compiled from the parchment pages of a medieval missal and then covered with black textile.
Contact:
Georgina Schlay
Museologist
schlay.georgina@leveltar.elte.hu