1880/2017
Library of San Agustin Convent Museum
From 1571 onwards the Library of the San Agustin Convent became one of the best in the Philippines; however, this Library has been damaged through the centuries.
One significant event was the attack of the British soldiers of Admiral Samuel Cornish that looted more than 5,000 old books. After being reconstructed by the Augustinian friars, the Library was again damaged during the Spanish-American War of 1898. The bombing of Manila by the United States in February 1945 destroyed many of the library’s treasures (around 20,000 volumes).
Today’s Library of the San Agustin Convent is a fraction of what it once was; however, there can still be found several thousand books from 1540 to the present.
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