Dan Brown Pays to Digitize Rare Mystical Texts at Ritman Library

Posted on June 23, 2016

It's no secret that bestselling novelist Dan Brown loves puzzles, books, codes and obscure mystical texts. Now he is taking action so that the public can also have access to some of these texts. He has donated $340,000 to Amsterdam's Ritman Library so it can digitize its priceless collections works on mysticism, alchemy, Hermetica, Kabbala and Rosicrucians. Brown has said before that the library helped him with his research for his bestselling novels starring codebreaker and symbologist Robert Langdon.

The library will now be able to digitize the 4,600 that make up its core collection of ancient books. The library contains some 25,000 works, including the 4,600 books and manuscripts written before 1900, as well as 20,000 books written after 1900, prints and other unique archives.

The collection will be available online for the public to view. Brown, author of The DaVinci Code and Inferno, said of the project, "I consider it a great honor to play a role in this important preservation initiative that will make these texts available to the public."

Museum Director Esther Ritman said, "It has always been our dream to connect this treasure house with the community and make it Hermetically Open to all. Thanks to Dan Brown we can digitize our core collection. I am thrilled to see this dream becoming a reality."

Brown made a video from his own home library (complete with secret door) which introduces the library and its amazing collection. Take a look: