Chapter 11 Collecting Islamic Manuscripts at the Munich Court Library in the Nineteenth Century
An Acquisition History
In: Manuscripts, Politics and Oriental StudiesSearch for other papers by Helga Rebhan in
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Abstract
The nineteenth century saw notable accessions to the collection of Islamic manuscripts in the Munich Court Library (Münchener Hofbibliothek). This article describes the acquisition history, starting with the secularisation in 1803, the transfer of the Mannheim Court Library in 1803/04, the French book theft and the restitution of these books in 1815. The single most important (though not undisputed) acquisition was the purchase of the voluminous library of the French Orientalist Étienne-Marc Quatremère (1782–1857) in 1858. At the very beginning of the twentieth century, in 1902, Eduard Glaser (1855–1908) mediated the sale of 157 Yemeni manuscripts collected by the Italian merchant Giuseppe Caprotti (1869–1919) to the Munich Court Library.