Zwingli’s Hohe Schule and the Book and Reading Culture in Zürich until 1601

Abstract

The origins of the library at the Grossmünster are unknown. The position of a librarian has been documented since 1260. Equally unknown are the book holdings from the period before the Reformation. To date, 32 manuscripts and 37 incunabula from the medieval library have been discovered. As a result of the Reformation, many books were destroyed, but these were usually multiple copies of works that were important for the pre-Reformation worship. After the Reformation, several notable donations were made. In addition, a budget for book purchases was made available from 1543 onwards. Various librarians, such as Konrad Pellikan and Johann Jakob Fries, devoted themselves to cataloguing and systematically arranging the books, as well as regulating their loan. The subject composition of the library, which numbered at about 1,000 volumes around 1600, shows that the collection was interdisciplinary in nature.