Inkunabuły dawnej biblioteki gimnazjalnej w Szczecinie − próba odtworzenia zasobu
Incunables of the old Gymnasium Library in Szczecin – an attempt at reconstruction of the collection

Summary/Abstract: The article describes the fate of the 15 th century collection of books from the Library of the Marian Gymnasium (Marienstiftsgymnasium) in Szczecin until its dispersion. The school functioned under that name in the years 1869–1945, although its beginning is connected to the princely Gymnasium, active from 1544 and localized in the neighbourhood of the Marian Church. A church libraria, which existed since the Middle Ages, soon after opening the school became also its library. Most of the information of the collection is available from the 1780 systematic catalogue, compiled by the rector and librarian of the then Academic Gymnasium, David Friedrich Ebert. The next catalogue, prepared by Johann Jakob Sell in 1816, encompassed the collection after the merger of the Gymnasium and the Lyceum (1805). In the 1840s a six-volume catalogue was ready, now partially available in the State Archive in Szczecin. Information concerning the preserved exemplars is provided by the published catalogues and the IBP registers in the National Library of Poland. The article contains a list of incunables held in the early 20th century in the former Library of the Gymnasium and gives their present location. The majority of the 50 preserved exemplars are housed in Książnica Pomorska in Szczecin (24), the remaining ones in the university libraries in Poznań (11), Warsaw (6), and Toruń (3), two in the National Library of Poland, one in the Museum of Cieszyn Silesia in Cieszyn, and probably three in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. The restored collection was characterized thematically and typographically.

• Details
• Contents