Several months ago, a Fletcher Free librarian found a book that appeared to be quite old in the building’s basement on Burlington’s College Street.
“Book published in 1494,” a typewritten index card within its pages read. “It is the oldest book in the Library.”
After consulting an aging ledger, staff learned that the library had acquired the tome for $2.50 from an auction house in 1882. The funds, the ledger noted, came from overdue fines.
Further research revealed that the author, Pierre d’Ailly, was a French theologian, astrologer and Roman Catholic cardinal who served as chancellor of the University of Paris. Little is known about the book’s contents, as it was written in old biblical Latin, though it is thought to be part of the “doctrine of exponibilia,” an area of medieval logic and semantics widely discussed in the 15th and 16th centuries.
Now on display in the library’s main reading room, the manuscript contains ornately scrawled notes in its margins and several holes made by actual bookworms. Its pages, made of stretched calfskin, were likely printed on a Gutenberg press, a mid-1400s invention that allowed for the mass production of printed material.
Library director Mary Danko said the book reminds her how the advent of the printing press created broader access to ideas and stories and promoted freedom of speech.
Library visitors can view d’Ailly’s book until May 24. After that, it will be turned over to the nonprofit Friends of the Fletcher Free Library and sold to support library operations.
Danko said other books written by d’Ailly have fetched between $5,000 and $15,000 at auction — several thousand times more than the overdue fines used to purchase it.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Precious Pages.”
Correction, April 22, 2026: An earlier headline on this story contained an error regarding the age of the book. It has been updated.
This article appears in April 22 • 2026.
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