Árni Magnússon

Born in Iceland in 1663, he became one of the most important manuscript collectors in the Nordic world. He studied and later worked in Copenhagen, where he built a remarkable collection of Icelandic, Norwegian, and Danish medieval manuscripts while also serving as a scholar and professor.

His work was driven by a sense that fragile handwritten sources needed to be found, copied, and protected before they disappeared. Thanks to that effort, many texts central to the study of medieval Iceland and Old Norse literature survived in forms that scholars could continue to use.

He died in 1730, but his legacy remains enormous. The manuscript collection associated with him is still at the heart of research into medieval Nordic history, language, and literature, and his name is closely tied to the preservation of Iceland’s written heritage.