Prince Thurn and Taxis court library and central archive

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Prince Thurn and Taxis court library and central archive
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Library type Private library and archive, open to the public
place regensburg
operator Prince Albert II of Thurn and Taxis
Website www.hofbibliothek.thurnundtaxis.de

Fürst Thurn und Taxis court library and central archive are located in Regensburg .

Prince Thurn and Taxis court library

The founder of the court library was Prince Carl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis (1733–1805). He had it expanded according to plan and opened it to the public in 1787. Today the court library comprises around 240,000 bibliographical units, plus around 9,000 micromaterials, 1,300 incumbents, around 400 manuscripts, 2,900 music manuscripts and around 400 early music prints. The focal points of the holdings include the history of the Middle Ages and modern times, art and cultural history, music, Bavarica, Ratisbonensia, aristocratic literature as well as postal and transport history. Interesting special collections are the hippological literature from the 16th to the 20th centuries and the "Häberlin Collection", a collection of around 1,900 pamphlets from the time of the Thirty Years' War. There are also the graphic, philatelic and numismatic collections.

history

At the court of Prince von Thurn und Taxis , the princely court library developed from the private library of Prince Alexander Ferdinand von Thurn und Taxis (1704–1773), who died in 1773 . The first catalog of books created in 1771 has a stock of 2,330 books. The court library originally arose out of the idea of ​​entertaining the ambassadors of the Perpetual Reichstag in Regensburg on the one hand, and on the other hand meeting the technical and scientific demands of the Reichstag work. From 1775 this was expanded according to plan and opened to the public in 1782. The establishment of libraries was a prestigious prestigious project of the high nobility in the 18th century. It was by no means common to make these publicly available to the general public. However, Prince Alexander Ferdinand's son, Prince Carl Anselm von Thurn und Taxis (1733–1805), was the founder of the publicly accessible princely court library. He provided the library with an annual acquisition budget and thus enabled the inventory to be expanded as planned.

At the end of the 18th century, the court library already had over 50,000 volumes. In 1812 the secularized former imperial monastery of Sankt Emmeram in Regensburg fell to the princely house as a future residence, in whose premises the court library moved, where it is still located today. The extensive building complex, the history of which goes back to the 11th century, was part of the compensation paid by the Kingdom of Bavaria to the Thurn und Taxis house for the taxissche post office that was nationalized in Bavaria.

In the course of the 19th century it was re-cataloged and reorganized under Prince Maximilian Karl von Thurn und Taxis . In 1864, Prince Maximilian Karl returned the management of the archive and library to full-time hands. The Fürst Thurn und Taxis court library in Regensburg has been preserved and is still open to the public today.

It works closely with the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek and the Staatliche Bibliothek Regensburg, but has remained a private collection and is one of the largest private libraries in the world. It is sponsored by Prince Albert II von Thurn und Taxis .

Asam hall

The library hall of the Reichsstift St. Emmeram was built in 1732 according to plans by Johann Michael Prunner from Linz. Prunner oriented himself towards library halls in his Austrian homeland and created a hall with three domed vaults, which was not common in southern Germany. In 1737 the hall was designed by the famous Bavarian baroque painter Cosmas Damian Asam .

The changes in 1812, when the Reichsstift St. Emmeram fell to the princely von Thurn und Taxis family , did not remain without influence on the Asamaal. Extensive changes were made before the court library moved in. The Regensburg artist Joseph Zacharias gave the hall a classicist overpainting in line with contemporary tastes, which made Asam's frescoes forgotten for a long time.

Various structural damage made it necessary to renovate the library hall in the 1960s. The baroque ceiling paintings that Cosmas Damian Asam had created in this room were rediscovered. In a report from 1967, the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments complied with Prince Franz Joseph von Thurn und Taxis (1893–1971) 's request to remove the classicistic overpainting and expose the original painting. In 1969 the Asamaal was "reopened". This late work by Cosmas Damian Asam, who died two years after completing the frescoes, was thus preserved. It is the only library room he created.

After the original holdings no longer existed since the secularization, the hall was given its original appearance with around 12,000 volumes from the old holdings of the princely court library. Today, the Asamaal, together with the old holdings in it, is one of the few library halls in southern Germany that form a complete unit from the furnishings to the book inventory.

Prince Thurn and Taxis central archive

In terms of content, the holdings of the princely archive are closely linked to the court library. The Fürst Thurn und Taxis central archive comprises around 6,500 linear meters of archive material from the 9th century to the present day and is one of the largest private archives in Germany.

history

The Fürst Thurn und Taxis central archive was created in the 16th century at the family's administrative headquarters in Brussels. According to the oldest surviving finding aid, there was an extensive archive there as early as 1689, which included the archives of the family and the postal service. In 1728 the von Thurn und Taxis family moved to Frankfurt am Main. After the family had lived in Regensburg since 1748, the archive followed in 1757. The archives came with the acquisition of real estate and dominions by the House of Thurn and Taxis in the Netherlands, Württemberg, Upper Swabia, Bavaria, South Tyrol, Bohemia, Poland and Croatia of these lords and the respective princely administration of these domains in the central archive. The same applies to the archives of the secularized imperial monasteries Neresheim, Marchtal and the Buchau women's monastery.

The post archive (around 11,000 documents and files) of the imperial Reichspost (1500–1806) came to Regensburg in 1867 after the royal post office facilities were finally over. The holdings are supplemented by the tradition of the activities of the Thurn und Taxis as imperial princes and politically and socially important actors across Europe. Around 15,000 personnel files of former princely employees are also an interesting source. The Fürst Thurn und Taxis central archive is one of the most valuable national cultural assets of the Federal Republic of Germany. The archive and court library have been located in St. Emmeram Castle in Regensburg since 1812 and are open to research.

The diversity of the holdings in the Princely Central Archives results in numerous research areas for historians and art historians.

Inventory overview

  • A. Family: House and family things, bequests, branch lines of the Thurn und Taxis house
  • B. Rulership: Empire, court keeping, administration, possessions, acquisitions, foreign provenances
  • C. Post: documents, post offices, post office awards, files
  • D. Selekte: possessions, personnel files, court files, map collection, land maps, topographical maps,
  • E. Collections: Documents, König-Warthausen collection (Hochstift Regensburg), autograph collection, Freytag collection, family history research and documents, Regensburg collection (Ratisbonensia), Oberpfalz collection, Post collection, Resch collection, seal collection, etc.
  • F. Documentation: Rübsamiana ( Joseph Rübsam , archivist), Freytagiana ( Rudolf Freytag , archivist), Hildebrandiana (pastor Hildebrandt, genealogist), Plassiana (Joseph Plass, local history researcher), Williana ( Cornelius Will , archivist)

Post special stock

The postal archives, the registries and archives of the imperial Reichspost (1500–1806), the Dutch Post Generalate (1500–1792), the Fürstlich Thurn und Taxis fiefdoms (1806, 1815–1867) also came to Regensburg after the princely postal facilities finally ended in 1867 . The postal archive, one of the most valuable economic archives of modern times, with archival material between around 1500 and 1870 comprises 270 linear meters of files in 10,000 fascicles and 1,000 postal documents. This inventory is entered in the list of the "Nationally Valuable Archives of the Federal Republic of Germany".

Head of the Princely Court Library

  • Baron Franz Ludwig von Beberich (1773–1783 Princely Privy Council)
  • Franz Wilhelm Rothammer (1779–1785 librarian) / Balthasar Kitzinger (1784–1786)
  • Alexander Graf von Westerholt (1786–1827)
  • August Krämer (from 1815 Princely Librarian; 1826–1833 Princely Archivist and Librarian)
  • Emmanuel Georg Hänsel (from 1827 in the Princely House; from 1829 in the Immediatbureau; 1833–1858 Princely Archivist)
  • Carl August Hermann Schmid (1858–1867; Princely archivist from 1860)
  • Cornelius Will (from 1866 assessor; from 1867 archivist; 1881–1904 senior archivist and director of the court library)
  • Josef Rübsam (from 1903 archivist; 1904–1920 senior archivist and director of the court library)
  • Rudolf Freytag (1921–1946 senior archivist and director of the court library)
  • Georg Stail (from 1924 archivist; from 1927 senior archivist retired title and rank with temporary use; 1946–1957 senior archivist and director of the court library)
  • Max Piendl (1957-1984)
  • Martin Dallmeier (1984-2004)
  • Peter Styra (since 2004)

Court library and central archive today

The court library and central archive are part of the Thurn und Taxis identity. Student research work on topics related to the history, art and culture of the Thurn und Taxis house, topics on the history of postal and communication and general topics that arise from the holdings of Fürst Thurn und Taxis central archive and court library are supported. The final theses are published in the company's own scientific publication series, the Thurn und Taxis Studies. So far, 20 volumes of the old series and 13 volumes of the new series have been published.

literature

Literature on the court library

  • Rudolf Freytag : From the history of the Princely Thurn and Taxis court library . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 40 (1928), pp. 323-350.
  • Fürstlich-Thurn-und-Taxis Court Library: Court library of Prince Thurn and Taxis: Exhibition on the occasion of the 200th anniversary and the opening of the restored hall by Cosmas Damian Asam . Regensburg, February 1969. - Munich, 1969.
  • Max Piendl : Libraries at St. Emmeram in Regensburg: Monastery library-court library of Prince Thurn and Taxis . In: Hans Joachim Genge (Hrsg.): Scientific libraries in Regensburg . Wiesbaden, 1981, pp. 9-77.
  • Erwin Probst: Princely library and its librarians 1770–1834 . In: Thurn and Taxis Studies 3, Kallmünz 1963, pp. 127-229.
  • Peter Styra: The court library of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis around 1800 . In: The Regensburg Library Landscape at the End of the Old Empire , ed. by Manfred Knedlik and Bernhard Lübbers , (Catalogs and publications of the State Library Regensburg 5), Regensburg 2011, pp. 165–179.
  • Peter Styra: Prince Thurn and Taxis court library . In: Bibliotheksforum Bayern 11, Heft 4, 2017, pp. 265–269.

Literature on the central archive

  • Martin Dallmeier: The Thurn and Taxis central archive in Regensburg: a rulership archive with archival material on Bohemia . In: Negotiations of the Historical Association for Upper Palatinate and Regensburg 131 (1991), pp. 287–297.
  • Princely Thurn and Taxis Central Archives . In: Archives in German-speaking countries . Berlin [et al.], 1974, pp. 822-823.
  • Max Piendl: The archives of Prince Thurn and Taxis . In: Mitteilungen für die Archivpflege in Bayern, Sonderheft 8 (1972), pp. 105–117.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Styra, Peter: The court library of the Prince of Thurn and Taxis around 1800, in: The Regensburger library landscape at the end of the Old Empire, ed. v. Manfred Knedlik and Bernhard Lübbers, (catalogs and writings of the State Library Regensburg 5), Regensburg 2011, pp. 165–179.
  2. ↑ Rudolf Freytag: From the history of the Princely Thurn and Taxis court library . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 40 (1928), pp. 323-350.
  3. ↑ Rudolf Freytag: From the history of the Princely Thurn and Taxis court library . In: Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 40 (1928), pp. 323-350.
  4. ^ Styra, Peter: Fürst Thurn und Taxis Hofbibliothek, in: Bibliotheksforum Bayern, hrgg. v. Library Association Bavaria, Bavarian State Libraries / Issue 4 / 11th volume (2017), pp. 265–269.
  5. ↑ Fürstlich-Thurn-und-Taxissche Hofbibliothek: Court library of Prince Thurn and Taxis: exhibition on the occasion of the 200th anniversary and the opening of the restored hall by Cosmas Damian Asam; Regensburg, February 1969. - Munich, 1969.
  6. ^ Max Piendl: The archives of Prince Thurn and Taxis . In: Mitteilungen für die Archivpflege in Bayern, Sonderheft 8 (1972), pp. 105–117.
  7. ↑ http://www.hofbibliothek.de/ , last accessed March 12, 2018, 1:10 p.m.