Library of the Maria Laach Abbey
The library of Maria Laach Abbey today contains around 260,000 titles, of which around 9,000 were printed before 1800. This makes the library one of the largest private libraries in Germany.
history
A library existed in the monastery founded in 1093 as early as the Middle Ages . When the monastery was abolished as part of secularization in 1802, the library was dispersed. The inventory counted 3,719 printed works. Today there are still 69 manuscripts in the historical monastery library of Maria Laach.
With the re-establishment of the monastery by the Benedictines in 1892 - the Jesuits had only worked in Maria Laach for a short time - the rebuilding of the library began. As a basis it received the old stock of the likewise secularized Franconian Benedictine monastery Neustadt am Main . From the Beuron were duplicates and from Swiss pen libraries Einsiedeln and Engelberg purchases were made.
The monastery library in Maria Laach already had 40,000 volumes in 1900. The focus of the collection is on ascetic , monastic and ecclesiastical literature.
building
The library is now divided into two buildings. In September 2013, a modern warehouse building was completed in the so-called Jesuit cowshed .
As a result, the historical library building, the so-called Jesuit library, built as a connection between the monastery church and the guest wing, could be freed from retrofitted shelves and the original spatial effect restored. The library building from 1865 with its cast-iron staircase and parapet construction is one of the most remarkable and best-preserved library buildings of the 19th century in the succession of the large baroque monastery libraries, according to the state monument preservation authorities. It was renovated in two years and reopened on July 21, 2015. The reference library and reading room have been set up there since then .
Book stamps and signatures
literature
- Armin Schlechter: Bibliotheca Abbatiae beatae Mariae virginis ad Lacum. Zimelien from the library of the Benedictine monastery Maria Laach . Koblenz 2013, pp. 9-14.
Web links
- Entry in the handbook of the historical book collections online
- Special exhibition Bibliotheca Abbatiae beatae Mariae virginis ad Lacum. Zimelien from the library of the Benedictine monastery Maria Laach (PDF; 233 kB)
- Günther Schmitt: New library magazine. Maria Laach Abbey is investing 2.87 million euros . In: General-Anzeiger (Bonn) of September 20, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Quoted from Maria Laach: Bibliothek , accessed on July 13, 2017