For anyone who happens to be a fan of the USA Network TV show “White Collar,” watching Neal Caffrey sometimes “borrow” priceless paintings and artifacts may serve as an entertaining outlet for some. If so, it might be a good idea to check out the new exhibit at the Rare Books and Manuscript Library at the University.

The exhibit is called The Cavagna Sangiuliani Collection. It features works acquired by Count Antonio Cavagna Sangiuliani Di Gualdana (1843-1913) and includes art pieces dating all the way back to the 15th century.

Antonio Cavagna Sangiuliani was born August 1843 in Alessandria, Italy. When he was only 19, Antonio began collecting books and continued to do so throughout the rest of his life. This collection shows details of his family and works sent to him by authors of the time.

Chloe Ottenhoff is the cataloging coordinator at the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library and the curator to the Cavagna Sangiuliani Collection. Her work has been ongoing for seven years at the library with five years dedicated specifically to cataloging this collection. She said the grant was for $500,000 and particularly focused on this collection.

While it is an Italian collection, Ottenhoff said the exhibit should also interest people from other fields of history.

“Even though it’s an Italian collection that has a lot to do with the history of Italy, there are aspects that other fields would be interested in,” Ottenhoff said. “For instance, there are many documents depicting geology or architecture.”

Ottenhoff explained any historian or scholar could find the pieces in this collection useful to their own research.

Also working on the Cavagna exhibit are four graduate student assistants. One of whom is Mariagabriella Stuardi. Stuardi has been working with the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library for three years and specialized in the manuscript portion of the Cavagna collection. She curated the current pop-up exhibit near the entrance of the library.

“We were already working on the other exhibit, on the bigger one, and I also wanted to somehow show all the other material that we have that wasn’t included … it gives a very clear idea of what the collection contains,” Stuardi said. “There’s so much variety.”

That variety can be seen in most of the written works. Many of them vary in size, style and of course content.

Another way the collection shows variety is through a combination of languages such as Italian, German, Spanish, Latin and French. It’s important to note there are no translations available for all the presented pieces.

“That’s why we put (up) extensive labels … to prioritize mostly the aesthetical aspect, because it’s very hard to find somebody that can actually read what’s in there,” Stuardi said.

Sheila Loosevelt, linguistics and Italian student at the University, has seen the exhibit. Loosevelt’s knowledge of Italian would make her one of the select people on campus able to read directly from some of the documents in the exhibit.

“I guess (the exhibit) showcases that there’s more to the University than people ever expect,” Loosevelt said. “I feel like people look at the University of Illinois and it’s a huge engineering school and all this stuff with agriculture. But they have a really good language program here, but I feel like that’s not the first thing that people think of.”

Loosevelt said the fact that we have some very rare manuscripts in our library collection is really cool.

Apparently, Loosevelt isn’t the only student who feels this way. Kellie Clinton is a University of Illinois alumna and a graduate assistant studying history. She is working with the Cavagna Collection to catalog the extensive documents it processes. She said the feedback on the exhibit has been very positive.

The Rare Books and Manuscripts Library is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The Cavagna Sangiuliani exhibit is on display from Sept. 14-Dec. 14, with pop-up exhibits rotating between two and three weeks at a time.

Clinton’s pop-up exhibit near the entrance of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library will be starting in October.

“We’ve had a lot of people saying, ‘Wow, this is so cool!’” Clinton said. “Many people say, ‘I didn’t realize this library was even here, and I didn’t realize I could look at all this cool stuff.’ And then this kind of sparks their interest in the rest of the collection.”

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