Mainzer Akademikerbibliotheken

    Mainz Early Modern Academics' Libraries

    The database MABFN contains the material from a study on book collections of citizens with an academic background and members of the lower and medium clergy living in Mainz around 1600: 1.341 works in 733 volumes from 48 identified book owners, with detailed information on material-specific characteristics, traces of usage and the owners’ biographies.

    The study 'Buchbesitz und Buchbewegungen im Mainz der Frühen Neuzeit – Eine exemplarische Studie zu Akademikerbibliotheken aus den Jahrzehnten um 1600' by Christina Schmitz has been published in 2020 by Harrassowitz in Wiesbaden/Germany. In contrast to former studies on the book collections of the 'ordinary people', the basis for this work are not archival resources, but an analysis with the books in hand, books which mainly survived in the city library of Mainz. Although the located holdings are quite fragmentary, it was possible to reconstruct some private libraries and owners’ biographies, which would have remained unknown without these provenance marks, as further sources on their existence are missing.