BOOK V. Chapter VI. of Germany. sive collection of maps and charts. The catalogue of Town Libraries the Commercial Library is according to subjects, and is printed up to the end of 1853. The catalogues of the City Library remain unprinted. Its manuscript Alphabetical Catalogue fills 40 volumes in folio. Among the MSS. is an early Homeri Odyssea in Greek, on charta bombycina; a Latin Esop, with curious drawings; the Gospels in Greek from Uffenbach's Library; and an interesting series of autograph letters of the German Reformers. 1 Town Library of Frankfort Besides the Libraries connected with various public institutions (of which some brief notice will be found in the statistical division of this work,) such as the Seckenberg Museum, and the Staendel institution for the Fine Arts, there is at Frankfort a public Library, the property of the Town, which is arranged in a handsome modern building facing the river. In the vestibule are various Roman antiquities found in the neighbourhood. This collection contains nearly 80,000 volumes of printed books, and 1000 volumes of MSS., of which twenty are Abyssinian, twelve Turkish and Persian, six Hebrew, two Indian and Burmese, and the rest in Latin, German, and other languages. No catalogue of this Library has been published since 1728; but there are good MS. catalogues. The annual expense, which amounts to about 5200 florins (£434), is contributed by the public treasury. It dates from the year 1484, when Ludwig von 1 Foreign Office Returns of 1850, 267; Petzholdt, ut supra, 170189; Hoffmann, Die Commerz Bibliothek in Hamburg, 11-16; MS. Correspondence. BOOK V. Chapter VI. of Germany. Marburg bequeathed some books, with which were incorporated the collections of the suppressed Dominican and Town Libraries Carmelite Convents, and that of the Cathedral Chapter. The building is in many respects a good example of internal arrangement, and the plan of it may be seen in the Serapeum of 1849. The collection is said to be especially strong in the department of German History.' and Provincial Library of Augsburgh. The old Town Library of Augsburgh, like so many Royal Town of its companions, had its origin in the collections of the dissolved or abandoned Monasteries of the City and its suburbs. These, or such portions of them as seemed to the authorities to merit preservation, were first brought together, apparently by the influence of Sextus Birck (or Betula), then Principal of the College, in the Dominican Convent, and a small sum was assigned out of the City Chest for maintenance and increase. But, in 1548, the Dominicans having returned to their Convent, the books were removed to that of the Barefooted Friars and, fourteen years later, to the building-erected for the purpose,—which it still occupies. In 1545 the Library obtained by purchase (for 800 ducats) a collection of Greek MSS. which had been formed by Antony Eparchus, Bishop of Corcyra (remembered at Paris for his gift of a choice MS. to Francis I.-a MS. still occasionally shown amongst the special treasures of the department,) numbering 126 several works; and in 1614, another important acquisition, by the bequest of Marcus Welser's Library, containing 2266 volumes. Welser had already conferred a Petzholdt, ut supra, 126, 127; Foreign Office Returns, 260. BOOK V. Chapter VI. of Germany. service on the Library by establishing a printing office ad Town Libraries insigne pinus, more especially for the purpose of producing catalogues of its MS. treasures, and there had already been printed Höschel's Catalogue of the Greek Codices. The further development of the scheme was, however, frustrated by Welser's death. The Augsburgh tion for the Munich. The history of the Library during the eighteenth century is chiefly marked by the acquisition of the medical books—both printed and MS.—of Drs. L. Schröckh and G. H. Welsch, comprising together 2000 volumes; and of several important collections in the classes Law and Politics, including those which had theretofore been placed in the Senate Chamber and in the Chancery. Other minor Libraries at Augsburgh were similarly incorporated in the early part of the present century. This period of marked prosperity was, for a time, under contribu- seriously interrupted by that transfer of some of the great Library of choicest printed treasures of the Library, and of the whole of its MSS., to Munich, which followed the cession of the Free City of Augsburgh to Bavaria in 1806. The authorities at Munich thought that what Augsburgh wanted in the way of books was rather a popular collection, adapted for tradespeople, than a Library for literary men and scholars. The value of the books thus removed was estimated as amounting at the least to 20,000 florins. The enactment for the delivery by all Augsburgh printers and publishers of copies of all their books to the Town Library (which had existed since 1745,) fell also into desuetude, although in 1829 it was virtually, and voluntarily, revived by the booksellers themselves. TOWN LIBRARY OF AUGSBURGH. 447 BOOK V. Chapter VI. of Germany. Subsequent accessions, however, in some respects compensated the Augsburgh Library for the losses Town Libraries which political changes had entailed upon it. As early as 1808, steps were taken to collect what remained of the Libraries of the dissolved Monasteries, after the selections for the Royal Library at Munich had been made. In this way 5100 volumes from the Monastery of St. George; 5904 from that of the Holy Cross; 9727 from the Dominican Convent; 6690 from the Franciscan; 3654 from the Capuchin; 9658 from that of St. Ulrich; and 2058 from that of St. Maurice-amounting in the aggregate to 42,791 volumes-were brought together for the formation of a Provincial Library (Kreisbibliothek) which in 1811 was incorporated with the Town Library. That of the Jesuits-which nearly a century before had been augmented by, the collection of the famous Conrad Peutinger-had already been received. Six years later the Kreisbibliothek of Eichstadt (containing portions of several conventual Libraries, and especially of that of the Augustinian Canons of Rebdorf,) and a selection from other Libraries belonging to the former province of the upper Donau, were similarly incorporated. In 1835 the Library of the Jesuits of Mindelheim was also brought to Augsburgh. After the elimination of what was deemed worthless this collection still numbered "3168 books". Whilst the United Library of the Town and Province was thus largely augmented, duplicate books were from time to time thrown out and sold, and the produce of the sale devoted to the acquisition of new books. At present the Library contains, in the aggregate, BOOK V. Chapter VI. of Germany. about 100,000 volumes of printed books and 400 MSS., Town Libraries and is accessible to the Public thrice a week. The general superintendence is vested in a Committee, so composed as to represent the educational institutions of the City as well as the Central government and the local magistrates. The present Librarian is G. C. Mezger, who has published an excellent history of the Library.1 St. Mary's The germ of the Library at St. Mary's Church in Church Library Halle was a small gift of money in 1562, for the at Halle. pur chase of Luther's works, "thereby to make a beginning of the Library of Our Lady" (dass man davor kaufen sal die thomos Dn. Dr.Marthini Lutheri und hiermit den Anfangk der liberey zu U. L. Fr. machen). On this modest foundation a good superstructure has been gradually erected. In 1616 the authorities of the town purchased the collection of the Chancellor Distelmeier, containing 3300 volumes, chiefly in the classes History and Jurisprudence. In 1690, Dr. J. Oelhafen bequeathed (or, more accurately, his death then gave full effect to a previous conditional gift,) a collection of 1600 volumes, chiefly French and Italian, to be separately preserved and arranged. Passing over many minor acquisitions, two others, both of which came by bequest and were accompanied by a similar stipulation, have a claim to notice. The one, that of the Library of C. G. 1 Mezger, Geschichte der vereinigten Kreis- und Stadt-Bibliothek in Augsburg. Mit einem Verzeichnisse der ... Handschriften (1842, 8vo.); and subsequent communications by him, in the Serapeum; Petzholdt, ut supra, 11-15. |