Bavarian State Library
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Bavarian State Library (German: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), located in Munich, is the central library of the German state of Bavaria and one of the largest libraries in the German-speaking world.
The library was founded as the "Wittelsbach court library" by Duke Albrecht V, who acquired in 1558 the private library of Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter as a basic stock.
In 1571, Duke Albrecht V purchased the private library of Johann Jakob Fugger, enlarging his own collection by
- ca. 10,000 books, that had been acquired by Johann Jakob Fugger's agents in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands
- manuscripts and incunabula out of the library of Hartmann Schedel, that time one of the most important humanistic private libraries north of the alps.
Another rush of precious items arrived in Munich in the course of secularization: Many German monasteries and abbeys were dissolved in 1802 and 1803, and with them libraries with traditions extending back over 1,000 years. Only a part of the manuscripts and books could be rescued in the rooms of German state libraries.
The library was renamed "Bayerische Staatsbibliothek" in 1919.
[edit] Inventory
- ca. 9 million books
- ca. 90,200 manuscripts, including:
- Manuscript A of the Nibelungenlied
- Freising manuscripts
- the Carmina Burana
- ca. 47,200 subscription periodicals and monographic series (Europe's second largest holding)
- 19,900 incunabula (the world's largest holding), among them
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- bsb-munchen - Website of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
- hu-berlin.de - Lecture of Prof. Dr. Peter Zahn on the history of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (in German)
