Bayerische_staatsbibliothek

The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (right) on Ludwigstrasse, Munich

The Bavarian State Library (German: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, abbreviated BSB), located in Munich, is the central library of the German state of Bavaria and one of the largest libraries in the German-speaking world. Its building is situated in the Ludwigstrasse.

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

• c. 10,000 books acquired by Johann Jakob Fugger\'s agents in Spain, Italy and the Netherlands
• manuscripts and incunabula from the library of Hartmann Schedel, at 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 these manuscripts and books could be rescued in the rooms of German state libraries.

The library was renamed the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in 1919.

Inventory

• c. 9 million books
• c. 90,200 manuscripts; the catalogue is due to the librarian Johann Andreas Schmeller (1785-1852).

• Latin (Codices latini monacenses – Clm) , c. 17,000 items.
  • Breviarium Alarici (Clm 22501), 6th century
  • Purple Evangeliary (Clm 23631), 9th century
  • Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram (Clm 14000), c. 870
  • Evangeliary of Otto III (Clm 4453), c. 1000
  • Pericopes of Henry II (Clm 4452)
  • Sacramentary of Henry II (Clm 4456)
  • Uta Codex (Clm 13601), c. 1025
  • Ruodlieb romance fragments (Clm 19486), c. 1050
  • Scheyerer Matutinalbuch (Clm 17401)
  • Carmina Burana (Clm 4660)
  • prayer book of Maximilian I of Bavaria (Clm 23640)
  • the "Munich Manual of Demonic Magic" (Clm 849)

• German (Codices germanici monacenses – Cgm), c. 10,500 items
  • Manuscript A of the Nibelungenlied (Cgm 34)
  • Freising manuscripts
  • Wessobrunn Prayer (Clm 22053)
  • Muspilli (Clm 14098)
  • Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach (Cgm 19)
  • Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg (Cgm 51)

• Greek (Codices graeci – Cod.graec.), 645 items

• Slavic (Codices slavici, Cod.slav.), c. 100 items

• illustrated manuscripts (Codices inconographici), c. 550 items
  • Fechtbuch of Paulus Hector Mair (Cod. icon. 393)

• c. 47,200 subscription periodicals and monographic series (Europe\'s second largest holding)

• 19,900 incunabula (the world\'s largest holding), among them
  • a Gutenberg Bible

References

• Riding, Alan. "France Detects a Cultural Threat in Google," New York Times. April 11, 2005.

See also

• Berlin State Library
• German National Library
• Google Books Library Project

External links

• Website of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (in English)
• Website of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (in German)
• hu-berlin.de - Lecture of Prof. Dr. Peter Zahn on the history of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (in German)

• The European Library

Coordinates: 48°08′50″N, 11°34′50″E

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia