Until 1599, the old royal collection included no more than 30 Hebrew manuscripts. When the Royal Library was merged with the library of Catherine de Medici in 1599, the collection was enriched with about 20 additional Hebrew manuscripts. In the seventeenth century several hundred additional manuscripts, many of them acquired in the Near East, were added to the collection. Since then it has grown steadily to become one of the most extensive collections of Hebrew manuscripts in the world, and today the number of Hebrew manuscripts in the Bibliotheque nationale de France in Paris is close to 1,550. Its volumes encompass many areas of Hebrew literature, including Bible, philosophy, Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), and natural sciences, several hundred of them being richly illustrated. Among the collection's manuscripts are ancient Hebrew bibles from Ashkenaz and France. The collection also includes over 60 Samaritan manuscripts.
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