Princely Library Corvey

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Princely Library Corvey
Höxter Germany Corvey-Abbey-01.jpg
A room in the library, 2015

place Höxter
ISIL DE-110

The Princely Library Corvey is a noble library owned by the ducal house Ratibor and Corvey in Corvey Castle , the former Benedictine abbey . It consists of around 74,000 volumes and is one of the most valuable and largest private libraries in Germany.

history

The core of the library goes back to the collecting activities of the bibliophile Landgrave Viktor Amadeus von Hessen-Rotenburg (1779–1834) and his ancestors over four generations. In 1820 the Landgrave had received the former Principality of Corvey from the King of Prussia as an area compensation. In order to secure the inheritance threatened by a clause in the Hessian house contracts for the nephew, the Hereditary Prince Viktor zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1818-1893), adopted by him and his wife , the movables were brought to Corvey between 1825 and 1833, while the Landgrave continued resided in Rotenburg. The adopted Hereditary Prince was raised in 1840 by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, renouncing his Schillingsfürst inheritance claims and dynastic titles, as the first Duke of Ratibor and Prince of Corvey . His descendants are the owners of Corvey Castle and Library to this day.

August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben looked after the library as a librarian in the last years of his life from 1860 to 1874 .

Duration

This library has an exceptional collection from the 19th century with a large number of rarities; This makes it, together with its Biedermeier period furnishings, a library-historical monument of the highest order. One of the library's great treasures is fiction from the early 19th century, which is supplemented by an important collection of travel literature from the late 18th and early 19th centuries (approx. 3,500 volumes). The Landgrave and his wife put together a collection of books that also contained what was usually missing in other aristocratic or civil libraries: trivial novels and travel literature. The library includes a large number of Unica (unique works) and Rara (rare works). The three main languages ​​German, French and English are represented roughly equally. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, who described these novels in a letter from 1863 as cancer damage to our library , on the other hand bought valuable magnificent works and works of opinion as well as German literature from his own specialist area and area of ​​interest. In 1865 he was able to acquire some works from Paul Wigand's old Corveyer monastery library.

The library consists of 15 halls and was equipped with 200 different bookcases made from different types of wood such as walnut , curly maple and cherry . It was designed by the Berlin- born architect Anton Gehtmann from Höxter , a student of Carl Friedrich Schinkel , in the style of Biedermeier and late classicism .

The summer hall with its high-quality stucco ceiling has grisaille paintings in the lunettes of the stitch caps . These fantasy landscapes are attributed to the Corvey court painter Ferdinand Ludwig Bartscher . The summer hall now serves as an exhibition space for the library.

Between 2007 and 2011, the historic rooms of the Princely Library were extensively restored with the help of public and private donors. Today the unique ensemble with its 15 halls can be visited. The study of the librarian Hoffmann von Fallersleben is of particular importance, as original, restored furniture can still be seen in it.

Corvey project

Since 1999 the Corvey Princely Library has been looked after by the Corvey Institute for Book and Library History, an institute at the University of Paderborn, which is located in Corvey Castle. It emerged from the "Corvey Project" through which the approximately 74,000 volumes in the library were made accessible to science. For this purpose, the so-called "basic contract" was concluded in 1985 between the owner of the library and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. This enabled further development steps, such as library, editorial and scientific development as well as the long-term use of the library.

In addition to the library, the Corvey Institute also looks after the archive there and supplies science and research at home and abroad with the desired source material. The Corvey Institute digitizes further holdings of the Corvey library on site and makes them available to a wide range of users. The working basis is the catalog developed in the past few years by the “Project Corvey” with significant involvement of the Paderborn University Library and completed in 1999, which can be used online.

The scientific evaluation and processing of the holdings is carried out in the context of research work by the institute members or in third-party funded projects funded by the German Research Foundation, among others . The results are available in printed form (independent monographs or dependent publication organs such as scientific journals and series).

The cooperation between the owner Franz-Albrecht Metternich-Sandor von Ratibor and Corvey and the University of Paderborn to enable access to the holdings is considered exemplary.

Numerous books from Corvey are digitized as part of the fee-based offers of the Belser-Verlag German-language women 's literature of the 18th and 19th centuries and English-language women's literature of the 18th and 19th Centuries as well as in several editions of the Olms-Verlag (Hildesheim) and are available to everyone available to scientific workers in Germany due to the national license.

literature

  • Hartmut Steinecke : The Princely Library Corvey. In: Antonius Jammers (ed.): The special library or: The fascination of book collections. Munich: Saur, 2002, pp. 189-204. ISBN 3-598-11625-X
  • Hartmut Steinecke: The Corvey Princely Library - a “real treasure trove” in the Westphalian province. In: Sabine Graef, Sünje Prühlen, Hans-Walter Stork (eds.): Collectors and libraries through the ages. Congress Hamburg on May 20 and 21, 2010. Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 2010 (Journal of Libraries and Bibliography. Special Volume 100), pp. 182–190.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: A princely treasure trove of books - book covers and book illustrations from four centuries from the Princely Library in Corvey. Exhibition of the Kunstverein Paderborn from April 23 to June 4, 1989. Paderborn 1989.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker u. a. (Ed.): The Princely Library Corvey. Their Significance for a New View of Early 19th Century Literature. Contributions from the 1st International Corvey Symposium, Paderborn 1990. Munich: Fink, 1992. (Corvey Studies. 1.)
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker u. a .: Corvey - Princely Library. In: Handbook of Historical Book Holdings in Germany. Volume 3 (NRW). Hildesheim: Olms, 1992. pp. 1-11.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: The Corvey Princely Library project. For the development of a private library by the University of Paderborn. In: Elisabeth Fisch, Hartmut Vollmer (ed.): Insights-Outlooks. 25 years of the University of Paderborn. Paderborn: Bonifatius, 1998. pp. 132-144.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: Hoffmann von Fallersleben as a librarian in Corvey. In: Hans-Joachim Behr u. a (Ed.): August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben 1798–1998. Festschrift for the 200th birthday. Bielefeld 1999. pp. 35-48.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: The Princely Library in Corvey. The life's work of August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben. Höxter: Sparkasse 2002. (Culture in the Höxter district. 4.)
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: The Princely Library at Corvey. 2nd improved edition. Münster: Westfälischer Heimatbund 2004. ( Westfälische Kunststätten . 71.)
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: Landgrave Viktor Amadeus of Hessen-Rotenburg died 170 years ago. Monthly booklet of the Heimat- und Verkehrsverein Höxter eV, issue 10/11, 2004. online (PDF; 217 kB)
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: A book treasure not only for literary scholars. Twenty years of the “Princely Library Corvey” at the University of Paderborn. In: PUZ - Paderborner Universitätszeitschrift 4, 2007. pp. 48–50.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: The Princely Library Corvey. In: Claudia Brinker-von der Heyde, Jürgen Wolf (Ed.): Representation - Knowledge - Public. Libraries between the Baroque and the Enlightenment. Kassel: University-Press, 2011. pp. 23-35.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: "The library visits were very numerous compared to earlier years". For the development of the Princely Library Corvey by the University of Paderborn. In: 40 years of the University of Paderborn. Paderborn 2012, pp. 118–123.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: "During the summer the library was visited and used diligently". From princes, scholars and other book lovers in the Corvey Princely Library in the 19th century. In: Axel Halle u. a. (Ed.): The historical legacy in the region. Festschrift for Detlev Hellfaier. Bielefeld 2013. pp. 83-94.
  • Günter Tiggesbäumker: Corvey. World Heritage on the Weser . Deutscher Kunstverlag , 2015, pp. 42–45, 122–131 (numerous illustrations).

Web links

Commons : Princely Library Corvey  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Steinecke, p. 197

Coordinates: 51 ° 46 ′ 44.9 "  N , 9 ° 24 ′ 35.3"  E