Machsor Lipsae, courtesy Leipzig University Library |
Founded in 1409 by students of the Saxon nation who had withdrawn from the University of Prague, Leipzig University is, in consecutive years of existence, the second oldest university in Europe. A glance at its roster of former students—Goethe, Leibniz, Richard Wagner, and Angela Merkel among them—suggests the university’s central place in the intellectual, cultural, and political life of Germany and Europe alike. The six hundredth anniversary of the birth of such an august institution is certainly worthy of celebration. Yet the title of this odd little show is a bit misleading. “In Pursuit of Knowledge” is more a portrait of the Universitäts Bibliothek Leipzig than a celebration of Leipzig University’s history. In a way, it replicates the library in miniature: wide ranging, full of intriguing objects, but a little dour.
The wall texts here relate how the university had no formally centralized library for more than a century after its founding. During much of the university’s early history, faculty relied primarily on their personal libraries: the guiding principle for library acquisitions was to make available those books the teaching staff did not own or could not afford. The library evolved in an unplanned, often haphazard fashion, absorbing over the years the private libraries gathered by its professors, collections from dissolved monasteries, and individual volumes from the estates of outside scholars. This eclectic approach garnered some marvelous items, albeit by means