The Vryonis Collection comprises about 1540 books and 60 periodicals relating mainly to Byzantine history, art and literature, the Greek Orthodox Church, and the relations between Byzantium and Islamic and Slavic cultures. There are also some general works on classical, medieval and Islamic history and the modern history of Greece and Turkey. The books are in English, French, German, Greek, Turkish and a number of Slavic languages. Most of them were published in the twentieth century, but there are about 100 nineteenth-century imprints and 13 pre-1801 imprints.

Writers represented in the collection include Norman Baynes, Louis Brehier, Apostolos Darcalakis, Charles Diehl, Johann Droysen, Tryphonos Euangelidos, Manoel Gedeon, Charles Hopf, Phaidonos Koukoles, Spyridion Lampros, George Ostrogorsky, Steven Runciman, Georgio Soterios, Ernest Stein, Perikleos Zerlentos and Johann Zinkeisen.

The following are some of the early items in the collection:

• Dimitrie Cantemir, Voivode of Moldavia. Histoire de l’empire othoman (edited by P.N. Desmolets, 1743)
• Richard Knolles , The Turkish History, from the Original of that Nation to the Growth of the Ottoman Empire (2 vols, 1687)
• Paul Lucas, Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas, fait par ordre du Roi dans la Grèce, l’Asie Mineure, la Macédonie et l’Afrique (2 vols, 1714)
• Joannes Nikolaos Maurokordatos, Peri kathekonton biblos syngrapheisa para tou eusebestatou (1724)
• Metropolitan of Athens Meletios, Ekklesiastike historia Meletioy (4 vols, 1783)
• Photius Saint, Patriarch of Constantinople, Consolatione ad Evsebiam libellus (1601)
• Polyaenus, Polyainoy Strategematon bibloi okto = Polyaeni Strategematum libri octo (1756)
• Michael Psellus, Toy sophotatoy Psellou, syntagma eysyno (1545)
• Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Greek and Armenian Churches (1679)

Among Vryonis’s many books are:

• Byzantium: Its Internal History and Relations with the Muslim World: Collected Studies (1971)
• The Decline of Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh to the Fifteenth Centuries (1971)
• The Turkish State and History: Clio Meets the Grey Wolf (1991)
• Byzantine Institutions, Society and Culture (1994)

The collection is especially strong in periodicals. They include

• Corpus scriptorum historiae Byzantinae (1828–78)
• Epeteris (1924–41)
• l’Hellenisme contemporain (1947–56)
• Neos hellenomnemon (1904–27)
• Parnassos (1877–95)
• Pravoslavnyi palestinskii sbornik (1883–1914)
• Revue des études Byzantines (1943–63)
• Revue des études islamiques (1927–63)
• Thrakika (1928–61)
• Turkiyat mecmuasi (1920–58)
• Vakiflar dergisi (1938–62)

The Vryonis Collection was purchased by the Library in 1969 from Professor Vryonis.

The periodicals, rare books, and Greek books are catalogued individually and are part of the general and Rare Books collections. Greek works have call numbers starting with GK. The rest of the collection is kept together within the general collection. About a quarter of the books are catalogued, with call numbers starting with BYZ.

The Library published a full list of the collection in 1978.

This guide was prepared using these references:

• National Library of Australia. Vryonis Collection: An Author/Title Listing of Monographs and Serials on the Byzantine Civilisation Formerly in the Collection of Professor Speros Vryonis and Now in the National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1978.
• Speros Vryonis, The Vyronis Family: Four Generations of Greek-American Memories, National Centre for Hellenic Studies and Research, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 2000.