bavarikon4UThe Lithographiesteinlager at the Landesamt für Digitalisierung, Breitband und Vermessung
In the basement of the Landesamt für Digitalisierung, Breitband und Vermessung (Agency for Digitisation, High-Speed Internet and Surveying) an archive – unique in the world as far as its kind and size are concerned – is located: the Lithographiesteinlager (Lithographic Library). The library consists of 26,634 slabs of stone and in 1980 received landmark status.
The results of the first comprehensive cadastral survey in Bavaria had been recorded on limestone plates since the beginning of the official Bavarian survey in the early nineteenth century. The lithographic stones served until c.1960 for the reproduction and continuation of maps and plans. The reproduction process was based on the lithographic technique invented in 1798 by Aloys Senefelder (1771–1834). Senefelder covered the stone plates with the mirror image depicted by a grease crayon and then etched the surface with "gum water", a solution consisting of gum Arabic and acid (ferrous sulphate). Only the surface covered by grease crayon would take on the ink applied to the plate.
The stones come from the Solnhofen quarry in the Altmühltal (District Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen). They could be purchased much more cheaply than the copper plates, which had commonly been used until then – the reproduction of maps thus became much more economical. The field of application lay in the printing of cadastral maps, political maps and illustrations. Today, lithography is mostly used in the fine arts.
>> The Lithographiesteinlager (Lithographic Library) is part of the Landesamt für Digitalisierung, Breitband und Vermessung (LDBV, Bavarian Agency for Digitisation, High-Speed Internet and Surveying).