The Herzog August Library ( — "HAB"), in

Wolfenbüttel Wolfenbüttel (; ) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel District Wolfenbüttel (; ) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, the administrative capital of Wolfenbüttel (district), Wolfenbüttel Distri ...

, Lower Saxony, known also as ''Bibliotheca Augusta'', is a library of international importance for its collection from the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

and

early modern Europe Early modern Europe, also referred to as the post-medieval period, is the period of European history between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, roughly the mid 15th century to the late 18th century. Histori ...

. The library is overseen by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture.

History

Before Augustus II: The Bibliotheca Julia

The ducal library was founded in the

residenz ''Residenz'' () is a German word for "domicile", now obsolete except in the formal sense of an official residence. A related term, ''Residenzstadt'', denotes a city where a sovereign ruler resided, and thus carries a similar meaning to the contemp ...

town of Wolfenbüttel by Duke Julius of Brunswick-Lüneburg (1528–1589), who began collecting books around 1550 while studying in France. After buying some

chivalric Chivalry, or the chivalric language, is an informal and varying code of conduct that developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It is associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood, with knights being members of various chival ...

romances and scholarly literature he started acquiring from 1558 theological writings, and in 1567 his first large closed collection: the library of the Nuremberg City Counsel Michael Kaden (d. between 15 December 1540/9 March 1541), containing mainly legal and humanistic writings. In the period 1570–1572, the libraries of the monasteries of Dorstadt, Wöltingerode, Heiningen and Steterburg were, in the course of the introduction of the

Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...

in the

duchy A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a country, territory, fiefdom, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or Queen regnant, queen in Western European tradition. There once existed an important differe ...

, transferred to Wolfenbüttel. On 5 April 1572, Julius issued the first ''Liberey'' (i.e. ''library'') Ordinance, which is considered the official founding document of the Wolfenbüttel library. As early as 1571, the Duke had entrusted the church musician Leonhart Schröter with library administration duties. Schröter is therefore considered the first Wolfenbüttel librarian. The collection of the Bibliotheca Julia received new growth in 1578 through the purchase of a larger collection of manuscripts from the estate of the theologian Johannes Aurifaber, who died three years earlier, and from the inheritance of Sophia Jagiellonia and of the illegitimate son of Erich II of Brunswick-Calenberg-Göttingen. After Julius' death in 1589, his son Heinrich Julius inherited the library along with the crown. He expanded it to include the estate of the theologian Matthias Flacius and the collections of the Georgenberg monasteries near

Goslar Goslar (; Eastphalian dialect, Eastphalian: ''Goslär'') is a historic town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the Goslar (district), district of Goslar and is located on the northwestern wikt:slope, slopes of the Harz ...

, Brunshausen and Hamersleben. However, in 1618, just a few years after his accession, the succeeding Duke Friedrich Ulrich handed over the entire collection, which now comprised around 5,000 manuscripts and prints, to the Helmstedt University Library . In 1810, after the university closed, large parts of the holdings were returned to Wolfenbüttel.

The Bibliotheca Augusta

In the 17th century it was the largest library north of the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

. The library was named after Duke Augustus (1579–1666), who greatly enlarged the collection, which was kept at Wolfenbüttel. Armies passed by, back and forth, over the centuries, but the collection was well protected. It was so highly regarded that generals placed the library under special protection, and the library is one of the oldest in the world to have never suffered loss to its collection. In 2006 the library housed around 11,500 manuscripts and 900,000 books, of which 350,000 were printed between the 15th to 18th centuries. Of these, 3,500 are

incunabula An incunable or incunabulum (: incunables or incunabula, respectively) is a book, pamphlet, or broadside (printing), broadside that was printed in the earliest stages of printing in Europe, up to the year 1500. The specific date is essentiall ...

, 75,000 are from the sixteenth century, 150,000 are from the seventeenth century, and 120,000 are from the eighteenth century. Notable librarians have included: * 1604–1666:

Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg Augustus II (10 April 1579 – 17 September 1666), called the Younger (), a member of the House of Welf was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. In the estate division of the House of Welf of 1635, he received the Principality of Wolfenbüttel wh ...

* 1691–1716:

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...

Palumbo, Margherita, 'Leibniz as Librarian', in Maria Rosa Antognazza (ed.), ''The Oxford Handbook of Leibniz'', Oxford Handbooks (2018; online edn, Oxford Academic, 28 Jan. 2013), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199744725.013.008, accessed 14 September, 2024. * 1770–1781:

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (; ; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German philosopher, dramatist, publicist and art critic, and a representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced the dev ...

* 1968–1992: * 2016–: The library is famed for its research and for the hundreds of international scholars who collaborate with the library staff on various projects. Its research programs are described as exploring the "history of international relations, or the history of culture, ideas, and politics ... social history, the history of religion, business, science and law, constitutional history, the history of society, ndwomen and gender from the Middle Ages to Early Modern Times".

Significant Manuscripts

Herzog August Bibliothek 3 by Vincent Eisfeld

* The famous

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off in preparation for reuse in the form of another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid ski ...

''Codex Guelferbytanus 64 Weissenburgensis'', which contains in the lower text

Codex Guelferbytanus A Codex Guelferbytanus A designated by Pe or 024 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), ε 33 ( von Soden), is a Greek uncial manuscript of the Gospels, dated palaeographically to the 6th century. The manuscript is very lacunose. Description The c ...

, Codex Guelferbytanus B, and Codex Carolinus. *

Gospels of Henry the Lion The Gospels of Henry the Lion were intended by Henry the Lion, Rulers of Saxony, Duke of Saxony, for the altar of the Virgin Mary in the church of St. Blaise's Abbey, Braunschweig, Brunswick, better known as Brunswick Cathedral. The volume is co ...

* Liber Floridus ca. 1150 * Minuscule 97 * Minuscule 126 * Minuscule 429 * Nine volumes from the library of Matthias Corvinus * Schönrainer Liederhandschrift * Visio Godeschalci *

Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum The Corpus Agrimensorum Romanorum (Corpus of Roman Land Surveyors) is a Roman book on land surveying which collects works by Siculus Flaccus, Frontinus, Agennius Urbicus, Hyginus Gromaticus and other writers, known as the ''Gromatici'' or ''A ...

* Magnus liber organi, manuscripts W1 and W2 * Luther's Wolfenbüttel Psalter the only extant copy of Luther's glosses of his lectures on the Psalms beginning 1513.

References

External links