Thanks to the Dutch doctor, Edvard Sandifort, many rare and valuable works are now part of the collection, such as Maria Sibylla Merian’s Erucarum ortus from 1718.
She was one of the first who studied the development of insects and a skilful artist to boot. The Swedish
gardener, Daniel Kallström, acquired books by barter for the Bergius collection, such as A History of Uncommon Birds (published in 1743-52) by the famous natural historian and ornithologist, George Edwards. Most of the work was done by Edwards himself – text, drawings, engraving and coloration of the plates. His teacher in engraving was no less a person than Mark Catesby, sometimes called the father of American ornithology and regarded as the founder of American natural history. The Bergius Library includes the magnificent work of Catesby – The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahamas in 10 parts from the years 1729-1743. Thanks to Kallström we also have Christoph Jacob Trew’s Plantae selectae with 120 handcoloured plates. The plates are made by Georg Dionysius Ehret, the foremost flower painter of that time. According to the will the library was meant to be used by the professor of the Bergius Foundation (Professor Bergianus) and none of the works was to be removed from the collection, neither by loan nor by sale. Sources testify that the library was much appreciated by learned men of that time.
Other rare works include, for example, folios by the famous biologist Ulisse Aldrovandi who made great contributions to pharmacology, and Elementa physiologiae by Albrecht von Haller who made important discoveries in physiology, and also several of the works by Linnaeus.
The effort of constantly developing the library with high quality literature has resulted in many books with a distinguished provenance from people such as Carl Gustaf Tessin, King Adolf Fredrik, Admiral T. Anckarcrona and Pehr Kalm, disciple of Linnaeus. Some books in the collection were gifts from Linnaeus and others. The most remarkable provenance is perhaps the artistic notes and musical notations taken down by Erik XIV in the book Strabo, De situ orbis (Basel, 1549) - one of the books he read as a prisoner at Örbyhus.