Donaueschingen Court Library
In its heyday as a court library, the Fürstlich Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek Donaueschingen was one of the largest and most important aristocratic libraries in Germany. Most of the old holdings with numerous manuscripts and old prints were sold to other libraries and auction houses from 1980 to 2001.
The library was located in a building in the palace complex of the Princely Fürstenberg Castle in Donaueschingen . The library building dates from the years 1732 to 1735 and was once built as a princely chancellery by building director Ott from Schaffhausen. Next to it is the archive building , built by Franz Joseph Salzmann . A separate building was also built for the Princely Fürstenberg Collections .
Stocks
The beginning of the court library was formed by the small book collection of Count Wolfgang zu Fürstenberg (1465–1509). In the 17th century, the Fürstenberg family acquired several collections from other noble families, including the library of the Counts of Zimmer . After the Fürstenberg house moved its residence to Donaueschingen in 1723, the libraries of several lines of the house were brought together in the Donaueschingen court library in the following decades.
At an auction in 1794, the court library acquired 90 volumes from the former library of the Franciscan monastery in Villingen , so that this collection was at least partially preserved. At the beginning of the 19th century, the holdings of several secularized monastery libraries came to Donaueschingen, including those of the collegiate monastery Betenbrunn near Heiligenberg . Under Karl Egon II. (1796-1854) the court library was made accessible to the public. The court librarian Karl August Barack edited the catalog The Manuscripts of the Fürstlich Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek zu Donaueschingen (Tübingen 1865) from 1860 onwards .
The most important event of the 19th century was the purchase of the Laßberg collection in 1853. Joseph von Laßberg, a brother-in-law of the poet Annette von Droste-Hülshoff , had amassed over 11,000 volumes over the course of his life, including valuable manuscripts and incunabula . The most outstanding piece in the collection was the Nibelungen manuscript C , which Laßberg had acquired in 1815 and which also came to the Donaueschingen court library after his death in 1855.
The Donaueschingen court library still has around 30,000 volumes with a focus on the history and regional studies of the former principality of Fürstenberg and the state of Baden-Württemberg . The Yearbook of German Libraries estimated the stock from 1993 to 133,051 volumes, 510 incunabula , 2,840 music manuscripts and 800 cataloged covers. By 1993 there were also almost 1,400 manuscripts available.
Librarians
- Joseph Eiselein , high school teacher, librarian from 1820 to 1823
- Joseph Victor Scheffel , poet, librarian from 1857 to 1859
- Karl August Barack , old Germanist, librarian from 1860 to 1871
- Sigmund von Riezler , historian, librarian 1871 to 1883
The dissolution of the old stock
sale
Since 1980, manuscripts from the Donaueschingen court library have been offered at auctions. In 1992 the House of Fürstenberg sold the remaining 1370 manuscripts as a closed collection for 48 million DM to the state of Baden-Württemberg . The sale of the 500 incunabula followed in 1994, 86 of which went to the country for 2.2 million DM and around 400 were auctioned through a London auction house for 8 million DM. In 1999, almost the entire remaining old stock was sold, with the manuscript of the Nibelungenlied, the so-called Donaueschinger manuscript , being offered by Joachim Fürst zu Fürstenberg for 20 to 25 million DM. Since 2001 it has been located in Karlsruhe in the Badische Landesbibliothek under the signature Codex Donaueschingen 63 .
Today's whereabouts
The Latin manuscripts and the German manuscripts after 1500 are now in the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart, the German manuscripts before 1500 (including the Nibelung manuscript C ) in the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe. Little is known about the whereabouts of the incunabula and other prints. Some items from the court library were bought up by other libraries, such as the Nuremberg edition of the Witch's Hammer from 1487, which once belonged to the Franciscan monastery in Villingen and could now be acquired by the Villingen-Schwenningen Franciscan Museum . Most of the volumes are likely to be in private hands today.
The Freiburg medievalist Klaus Graf has been trying to create a virtual reconstruction of the old holdings of the Donaueschingen court library, especially the Laßberg collection, since 2000. After a part of the holdings in the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe was re-cataloged from 1998 to 2004 as part of a DFG project, these catalogs have been updated at the Manuscript Center of Leipzig University Library since 2012 and published on Manuscripta Mediaevalia .
Today the "Alte Hofbibliothek" event location
In 2012 the library building was converted into an event building, the shelves were painted white and are empty, there are no more books here today.
As a "library successor" under the same name, a remainder of the holdings, regionalia and the archive holdings themselves in the building of the Fürstlich Fürstenberg Archives are accessible to the public. The magnificent library furniture from 1738 from Messkirch Castle is also located here .
See also
- Nibelung manuscript C
- Zimmerische Chronicle
- Handwriting by Heinrich Stegmüller Cod. 494
- Princely house of Fürstenberg
literature
- Joseph Victor Scheffel : The manuscripts of old German seals of the Princely Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek zu Donaueschingen . Metzler, Stuttgart 1859.
- Karl August Barack : The manuscripts of the Fürstlich-Fürstenbergischen court library to Donaueschingen. Laupp, Tübingen 1865 ( digitized version ).
- Felix Heinzer (Ed.): “Unpredictable Interest”: Preserved cultural heritage. Catalog for the exhibition of the manuscripts acquired by the state of Baden-Württemberg in the Fürstlich-Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek . Württemberg State Library Stuttgart; Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe 1993.
Web links
- Klaus Graf: Not committed to tradition. An obituary for the incunabula collection of the Fürstlich Fürstenbergische Hofbibliothek zu Donaueschingen [1995–2003] ( Memento from October 1, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Library Laßberg on the website of the Baden State Library
- Fürstenberg Kultur - Information on the Fürstenberg collections, archive, court library and castle
- New cataloging of the Donaueschingen manuscripts in the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe. Manuscripta Mediaevalia.
- Digital copies of the Donaueschingen provenance in the digital collections of the Badische Landesbibliothek
- Digitized Donaueschingen music manuscripts in the digital collections of the Badische Landesbibliothek
- Nibelungen manuscript C - Donaueschingen 63. ( digitized version of the Badische Landesbibliothek )
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 47 ° 57 ′ 7.9 ″ N , 8 ° 29 ′ 57 ″ E