bavarikon4UTreasures in the Staatliche Bibliothek Ansbach
This collection presents highlights from the Staatliche Bibliothek Ansbach (Ansbach State Library). The library was founded in 1720 when Margrave Wilhelm Friedrich von Brandenburg-Ansbach (reigned 1703-1723) declared the former princely private library to be a public state library. Wilhelm Friedrich's ancestors had already laid the foundation for the private library in the 16th century. When the customs principalities fell to Prussia in 1791, the library suffered serious losses. For example, when it was transferred to Bavaria in 1806, only 7,000 volumes were still available in Ansbach. With the upgrading to a business library for the government of Rezatkreis (Middle Franconia) and the takeover of holdings from the Historical Association of Middle Franconia, the collection grew again.
The institution, which has been operating as a state library since 1959, today owns about 135,000 media, of which about 9,000 form the old holdings from the 15th to 18th centuries. These include late medieval Latin manuscripts (173 volumes), music manuscripts, including choir books (34 volumes), 94 incunabula and manuscripts from the Historical Association of Middle Franconia (96 volumes in total). Around 230 funeral sermons and 950 historical, printed and hand-drawn maps are also significant.
The oldest of the highlights shown here is a calendar for the then eleven-year-old Margrave Georg Friedrich (died 1603), compiled in 1550 by Paul Eber, a student of Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560). The series is continued by a map of the imperial city of Nuremberg from a bird's eye view (1581). The 17th century is marked by the major work ("Mundus Iovalis") by the Ansbach court astronomer Simon Marius (1573-1625) and a 250-page sermon on Margrave Albrecht I (died 1667). From the 18th century there is an English dictionary from the possession of Margravine Caroline (died 1737), Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1727, the score of the opera "Argenore", composed by Margravine Wilhelmine (died 1758) herself, the two oldest surviving theatre programmes from the Ansbach Court Theatre and a Protestant hymnal by the Ansbach poet Johann Peter Uz (died 1796). The last piece is a manuscript by the lawyer Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach (died 1833) about the famous "foundling" Kaspar Hauser (died 1833), who had lived in Ansbach from 1831 until his murder in December 1833.
>> This collection is part of the holdings of the Staatliche Bibliothek Ansbach (Ansbach State Library).