Middle Paulinum

The Middle Pauline around 1890

The Mittelpaulinum was a historic building of the University of Leipzig on the site of the former Pauline monastery . For almost 350 years it housed the university library ( Bibliotheca Paulina ). In 1892 the Mittelpaulinum was torn down.

Location and shape

The Mittelpaulinum was centrally located on the monastery grounds, the Collegium Paulinum , which were transferred to the University of Leipzig in 1543 . The name probably comes from this central position. It was connected to other buildings and divided the courtyard of the Paulinum into a front, in the direction of Alter Neumarkt (from 1838 Universitätsstraße), and a rear one.

The Mittelpaulinum was a two-, later three-story building with seven window axes . The ground floor had a vaulted ceiling resting on columns . The decorative side of the house with Gothic windows faced the front Paulinerhof.

• 

  The Central Pauline from the west around 1800

• 

  East view before 1830

• 

  Library hall before demolition

• 

  The demolition of the middle Pauline

• 

  The Albertinum at the location of the Central Pauline

history

During the time of the monastery, the monks had set up the monastery brewery on the ground floor of the central Paulinum. After the university took over the monastery, the rector Caspar Borner merged the libraries of the artist faculty and the great prince's college in 1544 and placed them on the first floor of the Mittelpaulinum. He made sure that the libraries of the surrounding secularized monasteries were transferred to the university. With this, the University of Leipzig received book and manuscript holdings from nine monasteries as the essential basis of its library.

As the university grew, so did the library over the centuries. Well-known librarians were Joachim Feller , Christian Gottlieb Jöcher and Ernst Gotthelf Gersdorf (from 1833 first full-time director of the library). Until the beginning of the 19th century, the monastery buildings had been used with almost no modifications. When Albert Geutebrück built the Augusteum on Augustusplatz from 1831 , the library moved there in 1835/36 due to a lack of space. But in 1844 Geutebrück added a second floor to the Mittelpaulinum, and the library returned in 1846.

It stayed here until another university building phase began in the 1890s under the direction of Arwed Rossbach , in the course of which the central Paulinum was demolished in 1892 and the new Albertinum was built in its place . In the meantime, in 1891, the spacious new building for the Albertina university library had been completed.

The Mittelpaulinum was not only used by the library. Medical professionals were also based here. Johann Christian Schamberg gave his lectures in the Anatomical Theater ( Theatrum Anatomicum ) founded in 1704 . In 1872 the surgical and internal polyclinics, including the pediatric clinic, were relocated to the Mittelpaulinum. From 1841 to 1843 the beginnings of the plaster cast collection of the University of Leipzig were also housed in the Mittelpaulinum. Until the renovation in 1844, it also contained a student dining room.

Web links

• The structural redesign of the university in the first half of the 19th century
• The redesign of the Paulinum according to the plans of Arwed Roßbach (PDF; 593 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ History of the University Children's Polyclinic

Coordinates: 51 ° 20 ′ 20 ″  N , 12 ° 22 ′ 43 ″  E