Nicolai Collection
The Nicolai Collection consists of 155 adhesive tapes from the 18th century, which were created by the Württemberg general and military theorist Ferdinand Friedrich von Nicolai .
Nicolai used the collection as a collection of material for his own scientific work. In addition, it was probably used by officer students from the High Charles School and even by Duke Karl Eugen himself.
Karl Eugen obviously found the collection so important that he bought it in 1786 for the ducal public library he founded in Stuttgart. Nicolai's payment consisted of a large sum of money, natural produce and an annual pension for life.
Originally the collection comprised 197 volumes with 29,221 plans and maps, 5604 of which were hand drawings, as Nicolai himself stated in a contemporary listing. Today there are still 155 volumes with around 23,000 pages and roughly the same number of prints and graphics that were glued onto the blank pages of the individual volumes. All graphics are from the time before 1786, most of them from the 18th century, much less from the 17th century and only a small part seems to be from the 16th century. The printed graphics are often illustrations removed from books that Nicolai has assigned to the respective thematic volumes.
The volumes are each arranged thematically. However, there is seldom a consistent order within the volumes. Thematically, the selection of graphics is based on the training of the officers: There are volumes on civil architecture, volumes on technology and mathematics, as well as volumes with maps and cityscapes pasted on. The majority of the volumes, however, contain military depictions: illustrations from the field of artillery, battle and maneuver plans, plans of military camps and sieges, war maps, depictions of guns as well as depictions of uniforms and fireworks. Numerous volumes are devoted to fortress construction.
The Nicolai Collection has been in the holdings of the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart since 1786 . The remaining volumes have all been left in their original state. In this form, they can be called up as digital copies in the digital collections of the Württemberg State Library.
"The Minster of Breysach A ° 1642" (Nicolai Collection, Vol. 3, Sheet 55r)
Two drawn fortress ground plans (Nicolai Collection, vol. 69, sheet 29r)
Plan of the Hohen Asperg fortress from 1777 (Nicolai Collection, vol. 131, sheet 3r)
Illustration of a cannon (Nicolai Collection, Vol. 24, Sheet 44 recto)
literature
- Daniel Hohrath: The education of the officer in the reconnaissance. Ferdinand Friedrich von Nicolai (1730-1814) and his encyclopedic collections. An exhibition by the Württembergische Landesbibliothek , Stuttgart: Württembergische Landesbibliothek 1990.
- Hans-Christian Pust: The "Nicolai Collection". An early acquisition from private ownership under Carl Eugen . In: Vera Trost and Hans-Christian Pust (eds.): Carl Eugens Erbe. 250 Years of the Württemberg State Library, Stuttgart: Württemberg State Library 2015, pp. 70–77.
Web links
- The Nicolai Collection (website of the Württemberg State Library)