The distinguished medievalist, Professor Astrik L. Gabriel, O. Praem., was Director of the Medieval Institute from 1952 until 1975. During his years as Director, he laid the foundations for, and greatly expanded, the Institute's excellent library, one of the finest medieval research collections in the United States.

Professor Gabriel formed a special collection in the Medieval Institute, which is named in his honor and is shelved in a separate room in the Institute library: the Astrik L. Gabriel University Collection. This is one of the richest collections anywhere of books and materials concerning the history of universities, and it attracts scholars from around the world. Besides books, monographs, journals, copies of doctoral dissertations, photocopies of articles, etc., the collection includes many photographs of university foundations and regalia, wax replicas of seals, and over 4,000 microfilms of medieval manuscripts pertaining to the history of universities. Moreover, Professor Gabriel prepared several scholarly apparatus accompanying the collection.

During the 1960s, Professor Gabriel single-handedly negotiated to establish at Notre Dame a complete photographic record of one of the great manuscript collections in the world, the Ambrosiana Library in Milan. He obtained the funding for this project, supervised its reception, prepared special catalogues of its manuscript holdings, acquired the research instruments necessary for gaining access to the collection, and again prepared scholarly apparatus to facilitate research. The photographic collection at Notre Dame consists of 12,000 negative microfilms of all the manuscripts—in Greek, Hebrew and Arabic as well as in Latin and western vernaculars—in the Ambrosiana Library. Complementing the microfilms are some 50,000 black and white photographs of miniatures and illuminated initials found in the manuscripts; negatives and photographs of the 350 paintings on display at the Library in Milan; negatives and photographs of 8,000 drawings in the Ambrosiana; and 15,000 color slides representing illuminated folios in the manuscripts and most of the drawings.

Over the years, Professor Gabriel continued to donate incunables and sixteenth century printed books to the Special Collections of the University Library. Recently he gave the Library a collection of sixteenth-century printed books, representing each year of the century with at least one book. The collection comprises 262 titles in 245 volumes. It is not surprising, then, that many of the volumes in this catalogue were donated by Professor Gabriel.

In his numerous books and articles on medieval university life, Professor Gabriel treats many Dominican professors and students. He has also written special studies on Dominican brothers and sisters (in order of publication):

------. Die Heilige Margharethe von Hungarn. Budapest: Künstinstitut Posner, 1944.
------. Sainte Marguerite de Hongrie. Budapest: Imprimerie Posner, 1944.
------. The Spirituality of St. Margaret of Hungary. Princeton: s.n., 1950?
------. The Educational Ideas of Vincent of Beauvais (Texts and Studies in the History of Medieval Education 4). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1956; reprinted 1962.
------. Vincenz von Beauvais: Ein mittelalterlicher Eizieher. Frankfurt a. M.: Josef Knecht, 1967.
------. Description of Sermones Discipuli, written by Johannes Herolt (died 1468), printed by [Georgius Husner] Strassburg 1483. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1992.

By his writings and by his contributions to the Notre Dame libraries, Canon Astrik Gabriel, of the Order of Premontré, has shown himself to be a true friend of the familia praedicatoria.