Annotation
Instructor: Richard Šípek / richardsipek@seznam.cz
Monday 12:30 p.m. - 2:05 p.m.
National Museum:
The meeting point is the porter's lodge at the staff entrance into the New Museum Building (Vinohradská 1, Praha 1
- http://mapy.cz/s/5iOV - exact location of the entrance is marked with a blue dot). Please, wait there for my coming. 8 ECTS
In the beginning, the lecture will introduce the general cultural background of aristocracy and bourgeoisie of baroque
Europe and formal as well as effectual position of the library in the system. Emphasis will be put on finding common signs of both the libraries of aristocracy and of bourgeoisie as well as their individual differences.
In case of the aristocratic milieu the representative importance of the family libraries and realization of the renaissance concept of bibliotheca universalis will be focused on. The bourgeois libraries will be presented with special respect to their exploitation in the owner's profession and thence the differences in the topical structure of the profession libraries.
Ways of acquisition, possessor's records and marks and their importance as a research source for the history of libraries will be discussed with respect to both the aristocratic and bourgeois libraries.
As an appendix to the lecture the baroque passion for collections and collecting (Sammellust) and the phenomena of cabinet of curiosities (cabinet de curiosités, Kunstkammer) will be described together with relations and bounds between the art collections and the libraries themselves.