Manuscripts, personal papers and autographs

Comprising around 60,000 occidental, oriental and Asian manuscripts, more than 1,000 sets of personal papers and over 36,000 autographs, the collection of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is one of the largest and most important of its kind worldwide. Among the most famous items in addition to the Codex aureus from St. Emmeram and the Carmina Burana, there are the three Reichenau manuscripts with Ottonian book illumination, which have in the meantime been entered in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, eight Corvinus manuscripts and the main manuscript A of the Song of the Nibelungs – the latter impressively highlighting the international renown attached to the library on the basis of its historical collections. Such a position implicates special responsibilities concerning both the cataloguing of the precious sources and making them accessible to international research and the public. More ...