after iceland received home rule from the danish government in 1904, the icelandic parliament (alþingi) began to petition for the return to iceland of at least a significant portion of the arnamagnæan manuscript collection, the manuscripts and other documents collected in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by the icelandic antiquarian and scholar árni magnússon. in 1927-28 four manuscripts and some 700 charters and other legal documents were returned to the icelandic national archives. in 1962 a special institute was set up under the name "handritastofnun íslands" (english: "icelandic manuscript institute"). ten years later, after the transfer of manuscripts from copenhagen had begun in earnest, the laws concerning the institute were changed and it was renamed "stofnun árna magnússonar á íslandi" (generally referred to as "árnastofnun"). it was administratively associated with the university of iceland until 1 september 2006, when it merged with four other institutes in iceland to create a larger independent institute of icelandic studies, the árni magnússon institute for icelandic studies.