The Library of Duke Wilhelm IV of Sachsen-Weimar and the Provenance of Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft Publications in the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek

Abstract

Abstract In 2004, fire struck the Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek (HAAB), particularly affecting its seventeenth-century collections, among them rich holdings of works associated with the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (Fruitbearing Society), the foremost seventeenth-century German cultural society. Scholars and librarians feared that unique copies of titles that Society members deposited or once owned, which represent valuable source material relating to early modern German and European thought and culture, were lost or damaged in the fire. This article examines the development and dispersal of the library of the second head of the Society, Duke Wilhelm IV of Sachsen-Weimar, and analyzes its Society connections and context, including the handling of deposit copies members sent to the Erzschrein, or Society archive. This library, as one of the predecessor libraries to the Ducal Library and ultimately the HAAB in Weimar, is a channel through which unique copies of Society works may have reached the HAAB. Through analysis of archival sources related to Wilhelm’s library and the Society in Weimar, application of bibliographic methods, and physical inspection of HAAB copies of Society titles for evidence of provenance, this article investigates their fate from a qualitative perspective in the wake of the library fire.