DFG supports historical research on libraries
La belle anglaise: The book collector Luise Dorothea von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg as mediator of English culture
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has supported the cultural history project La Belle Anglaise since 1. November 2023. Over a period of three years, this project of cultural history will investigate several thousand volumes the Duchess Luise Dorothea von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg, née Sachsen-Meiningen (1710-1767) possessed, a book collection representing one of the most comprehensive private libraries at Friedenstein castle..
Under the aegis of the Seminar for Church History (chaired by Professor Thomas Kaufmann) this project works closely with the Staats-und Universitätsbibliothek in Göttingen, the national library for eighteenth-century Germany, and is led by the Germanist, Dr. Gabriele Ball.
Partners in this interdisciplinary effort – involving philology, early modern history, library science, and women’s studies – are two outstanding institutions. One is the University of Erfurt, in particular both its Gotha Research Library for the Cultural and Intellectual History of the Modern Era (FBG) and the Gotha Research Centre for the History of Knowledge (FZG). Our other partner is the Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel (HAB), one of the world’s leading centres for research in European cultural history. The libraries in Gotha and Wolfenbüttel and the Gotha Research Centre, are all eminently capable of supporting the project not only due to their experience and superb infrastructure for research, but also through their innovations in digital humanities, especially regarding the reconstruction of historical libraries (HAB). An international conference, also to be funded by the DFG, will facilitate an international exchange between experienced and younger researchers and offer opportunities for the creation of projects related to the disciplines mentioned above.
The thematic context of the project is the networks of noblewomen in the 18th century. Unlike networks of their husbands (often rulers), those of noblewomen distinguish themselves in this research by their less formalistic and institutionalized nature, the more ambiguous separation between private and public spheres. There can no longer be any doubt about women’s learning, their knowledge of languages, their interests in natural science and philosophy, or sometimes even their accomplishments in the creation of literary texts. Thus, we are entirely justified in emphasizing the need to integrate their cultural activities into an understanding of early modern history – indeed, into contemporary history as well. To be sure, university study and the cavalier tours of the nobility were mainly reserved for men, but the participation of women in the public sphere at court, and their wide-spread membership in societies has been widely recognized but not as thoroughly researched as it merits.
A prime example of this is the Lutheran duchess Luise Dorothea, who was the cultural centre of the house of Sachsen-Gotha in the middle of the eighteenth century. Researchers agree that the Duchess shaped the court and Gotha like no other person since the dynasty’s founding father, Duke Ernst I., called the Pious, her great-grandfather. Accordingly, she was soon the declared and chosen Minerva of the court and sponsor of the arts and sciences.
Gabriele Ball emphasizes that the single-most noteworthy aspect of the Duchess’s nearly entirely French library is the higher-than-average representation of “English” authors – both male and female – including Scottish, Welsh, Irish, and American authors. This is curious, because the role of English culture and language among mid-eighteenth-century nobility was negligible. Ball finds, the Duchess Luise Dorothea collected “English” books and manuscripts from all fields of what was then called “die schönen Wissenschaften und freyen Künste”. Along with her preferred belles lettres are found newspapers and dictionaries, devotional literature, politics, history, natural science, and travel literature. “The goal of the proposed research project,” writes Ball, “is first to reconstruct systematically the Bibliotheca Anglicana within the entire collection, then to analyze it and make it visible within its context.”
Contact:
Dr. Gabriele Ball
Amelie Maaß (studentische Hilfskraft)
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Theologische Fakultät, Kirchengeschichte, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 2, 37073 Göttingen
Telefon: (0551) 39-27148
E-Mail: gabriele.ball@theologie.uni-goettingen.de und amelie.maas@theologie.uni-goettingen.de