The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies ( is, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum ) is an institute of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture of

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...

which conducts research in Icelandic and related academic studies, in particular the

Icelandic language Icelandic (; is, íslenska, link=no ) is a North Germanic language spoken by about 314,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Due to being a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely re ...

and

Icelandic literature Icelandic literature refers to literature written in Iceland or by Icelandic people. It is best known for the sagas written in medieval times, starting in the 13th century. As Icelandic and Old Norse are almost the same, and because Icelandic w ...

, to disseminate knowledge in those areas, and to protect and develop the collections that it possesses or those placed in its care. It is named after

Árni Magnússon Árni Magnússon (13 November 1663 – 7 January 1730) was a scholar and collector of manuscripts from Iceland who assembled the Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection. Life Árni was born in 1663 at Kvennabrekka in Dalasýsla, in western Iceland ...

, a 17th–18th century collector of medieval Icelandic

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced i ...

s. The Árni Magnússon Institute () was an academic institute located in

Reykjavík Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...

. The institute had the task of preserving and studying

mediaeval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

Icelandic

s containing Landnáma,

Heimskringla ''Heimskringla'' () is the best known of the Old Norse kings' sagas. It was written in Old Norse in Iceland by the poet and historian Snorre Sturlason (1178/79–1241) 1230. The name ''Heimskringla'' was first used in the 17th century, derive ...

and the

Icelandic sagas The sagas of Icelanders ( is, Íslendingasögur, ), also known as family sagas, are one genre of Icelandic sagas. They are prose narratives mostly based on historical events that mostly took place in Iceland in the ninth, tenth, and early el ...

. On 1 September 2006, this institute was merged with the Icelandic Language Institute, the University of Iceland Institute of Lexicography, the Sigurður Nordal Institute, and the Place-Name Institute of Iceland to create the current Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. It is a university institution with its own board and financing. The Minister of Education, Science and Culture appoints a five-member board for four-year terms. Three members are appointed according to nomination by the University Senate and two without nomination, with one of those two acting as chairman. The minister appoints a director for five-year terms on the recommendation of the board. Dr. Vésteinn Ólason was appointed director of the Institute of Icelandic Studies on 12 September 2006. Vésteinn had been the director of the Árni Magnússon Institute from 1 May 1999 until 1 September 2006, after which it was merged with four other institutes to create the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies. Professor Guðrún Nordal took over as director of the institute on 1 March 2009, appointed for a period of five years.

History

After Iceland received home rule from the Danish government in 1904, the Icelandic parliament (

Alþingi The Alþingi (''general meeting'' in Icelandic, , anglicised as ' or ') is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is one of the oldest surviving parliaments in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at ("thing fields" or "assembly ...

) began to petition for the return to Iceland of at least a significant portion of the

Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection The Arnamagnæan Manuscript Collection ( da, Den Arnamagnæanske Håndskriftsamling, is, Handritasafn Árna Magnússonar) derives its name from the Icelandic scholar and antiquarian Árni Magnússon (1663–1730) — Arnas Magnæus in Latinised ...

, the manuscripts and other documents collected in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by the Icelandic antiquarian and scholar

. In 1927–28 four manuscripts and some 700 charters and other legal documents were returned to the Icelandic National Archives. In 1962 a special institute was set up under the name ''Handritastofnun Íslands'' (English: "Icelandic Manuscript Institute"). Ten years later, after the transfer of manuscripts from Copenhagen had begun in earnest, the laws concerning the institute were changed and it was renamed ''Stofnun Árna Magnússonar á Íslandi'' (generally referred to as ''Árnastofnun''). It was administratively associated with the

University of Iceland The University of Iceland ( is, Háskóli Íslands ) is a public research university in Reykjavík, Iceland and the country's oldest and largest institution of higher education. Founded in 1911, it has grown steadily from a small civil servant ...

until 1 September 2006, when it merged with four other institutes in Iceland to create a larger independent institute of Icelandic studies, the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

Location

The institute has long been located in the Árnagarður building on the campus of the

by Suðurgata in

, though the organisations that were merged into the institute in 2006 continued to be based at different sites in Reykjavík. In 2005, the

approved the construction of a purpose-built Hús íslenskunnar ('House of Icelandic') or Hús íslenskra fræða ('House of Icelandic Studies') to house the whole Institute, standing on the other side of Suðurgata, beside the National Library of Iceland. Ground was broken in 2013 and a large hole dug before building work was temporarily halted following a change of government; the hole came to be known as the 'hola íslenskra fræða' ('hole of Icelandic studies'). On 7 May 2019 it was declared that work would resume.Vísir að skógi úr „holu íslenskra fræða“ afhentur Skógræktarfélagi Reykjavíkur
, ''Morgunblaðið'' (8 May 2019).

Manuscripts

The institute houses a number of historically and culturally important manuscripts, the bulk of them from the

. Among these are: *AM 113 fol (the ''

Íslendingabók ''Íslendingabók'' (, Old Norse pronunciation: , ''Book of Icelanders''; ) is a historical work dealing with early Icelandic history. The author was an Icelandic priest, Ari Þorgilsson, working in the early 12th century. The work originally ex ...

'') *AM 371 4to (the ''

Landnámabók (, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. is divided into five parts and ov ...

'') * AM 738 4to (Edda oblongata) *GKS 1005 fol (the ''

Flateyjarbók ''Flateyjarbók'' (; "Book of Flatey") is an important medieval Icelandic manuscript. It is also known as GkS 1005 fol. and by the Latin name ''Codex Flateyensis''. It was commissioned by Jón Hákonarson and produced by the priests and scribes ...

'') *GKS 2365 4to (

Codex Regius Codex Regius ( la, Cōdex Rēgius, "Royal Book" or "King's Book"; is, Konungsbók) or GKS 2365 4º is an Icelandic codex in which many Old Norse poems from the ''Poetic Edda'' are preserved. Thought to have been written during the 1270s, it ...

of the ''

Poetic Edda The ''Poetic Edda'' is the modern name for an untitled collection of Old Norse anonymous narrative poems, which is distinct from the ''Prose Edda'' written by Snorri Sturluson. Several versions exist, all primarily of text from the Icelandic med ...

'') *GKS 2367 4to (Codex Regius of the ''

Prose Edda The ''Prose Edda'', also known as the ''Younger Edda'', ''Snorri's Edda'' ( is, Snorra Edda) or, historically, simply as ''Edda'', is an Old Norse textbook written in Iceland during the early 13th century. The work is often assumed to have been ...

'') * Icelandic Manuscript, SÁM 66

References

External links

*
Árni Magnússon Institute’s Official Website
**
Online manuscript facsimiles
*
Árni Magnússon Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Arni Magnusson Institute Icelandic language Libraries in Iceland Culture in Reykjavík

History

Location

Manuscripts

See also

References

External links