Reconstructing the many paths by which the manuscripts in the collection of the Austrian National Library originally reached the library represents a science in itself. Signposts are provided first and foremost by the codices themselves. Ownership inscriptions, often deleted and written over by subsequent owners, notes which site a codex within a family or broader historical context, together with cataloguing inscriptions, form the most solid pointers. But entries made by readers, and the refurbishment of old manuscripts with “modern” bindings bearing coats of arms and monograms which preserve for posterity the identity of the owner, all yield clues which ideally enable us to trace the entire history of the manuscript from its production to its acquisition by the library.

Information can be gleaned, secondly, from inventories and lists of manuscripts that have passed to the library – for example in the wake of monastery closures. While such catalogues may indicate whether a codex was formerly in private possession or belonged to a religious foundation, the details they contain are often very general and frequently make it difficult to assign a codex to a specific former owner.

Accounts of the library’s foundation also deviate all too often from demonstrable fact, and much of the historical research conducted into the origins of the institution is built upon speculation. It concentrates upon the reconstruction of the collections assembled by the titled heads of the Austrian branch of the house of Babenberg, and the Habsburgs who followed them. Only in a few cases, however, is it possible to link surviving manuscripts with concrete names. The title of “founding codex” can only be demonstrably assigned to a luxury manuscript in Habsburg possession in the late 14th century.

Only much later, with the appointment of Hugo Blotius (1575-1608) as the first official imperial librarian, do we find tangible evidence of the library developing into an official institution, and only with the building of the Vienna Hofbibliothek in the 18lh century was the imperial collection of precious books given a fitting home, one where it could be displayed, administered and consulted (the public was granted limited access to the collection even in those days).

Its function as a Hofbibliothek (Royal Library) – it only assumed the title of Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (Austrian National Library) in 1945 – exercised a strong influence, in its early days, over the library’s collection and acquisition policy, and consequently over the character of its first holdings. A large proportion of its precious manuscripts derived from the private collections of leading aristocratic houses. By tracing these manuscripts back to their individual owners and thus reconstructing the latter’s holdings, we can identify a collector’s particular interest in certain subjects and themes, or their “merely” aesthetic preference for certain epochs in manuscript illumination or binding. Common to all these collectors – in line with their elevated position in society – is their orientation towards the most sumptuous and best that their age had to offer, both in the case of manuscripts intended for private use (such as prayer books) and in codices of a more official and public character, such as those donated to religious foundations.

Serving as a sort of collecting basin for royal manuscripts was the library of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol (1529-1595), which was housed in Ambras Castle near Innsbruck (Cat. 1.4, II.4, II.5, II.8,11.10, IV.2, V.5). In 1665, following the extinction of the Tyrolean line, the collection was transferred to the Vienna Hofbibliothek under praefect Peter Lambeck (1663-1680). With it came a large number of luxury manuscripts from the former possession of Emperor Friedrich III (1452-1493) and Emperor Maximilian I (1493-1519). In addition to these imperial treasures, mention should also be made of the manuscripts which Count Wilhelm von Zimmern (1549-1594) selected from his rich collection of codices in Old and Middle High German and presented to Emperor Ferdinand II in 1576 (Cat. IV.3).

The Österreichische Nationalbibliothek owes a considerable number of major works of Renaissance illumination and bookbinding to acquisitions from one of the greatest royal libraries of the late Middle Ages, the famous Bibliotheca Corviniana built up by King of Hungary Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490; Cat. III. 1, III.9). Regrettably, this library was extensively decimated over the course of time and its collection scattered far and wide, and only a small proportion of its original holdings still survives.

Before the middle of the 18th century, finally, the Hofbibliothek purchased the library of the bibliophile general and statesman Prince Eugene of Savoy ( 1736), who had also made a name for himself as a collector through his acquisition of precious illuminated manuscripts (Cat. IV.4, IV.5, V.2, VI.4, VI. 10). His collection embraces a fascinatingly wide range of codices, organized – entirely in line with the need for a classification of the “world of books” – into subject areas. Bound at the Prince’s behest in different-coloured morocco bindings bearing his coat of arms, the books thereby also presented the imposing appearance their owner desired. Through the visual impression made by their coloured spines, moreover, the Eugeniana become an integral part of the magnificent Baroque architecture of the library in which they are housed.

Manuscripts from monastic houses, by contrast, only entered the Hofbibliothek intermittently prior to the late 1700s, for example after being “borrowed” by court historiographers acting on behalf of the emperor. Only in the wake of the secularization linked in Austria with the name of Emperor Joseph II (1741-1790) did the manuscript holdings of closed monasteries occasionally pass to the Hofbibliothek. These included, as from 1780, the libraries of the Augustinian abbey of St Dorothy’s in Vienna (Cat. 1.10), the Jesuit colleges in Vienna (Cat. II.6, Cat. III.10) and Krumau (Cat. V.3), the Benedictine monastery in Mondsee in Upper Austria (Cat. III.4, III.8) and the Damenstift convent in Hall in Tyrol (Cat. 1.9, V.l). During this period, finally, the Hofbibliothek secured one of its most important acquisitions of monastic manuscripts with the transfer to Vienna of the Salzburg Cathedral library and the Archbishop’s library (Cat. II.9, Ш.2, Ш.З, III.ll).

The Hofbibliothek also added to its holdings from a third source of manuscripts, namely the private collections of scholars, which at the instigation of its dedicated librarians it began to purchase in growing numbers. In the context of the present volume, particular mention should be made of two acquisitions secured during the early years of the Hofbibliothek through the efforts of its first librarian, Hugo Blotius. In 1578 Blotius purchased from Johannes Sambucus, who was in financial difficulties, the latter’s collection of predominantly Latin and Greek classics (Cat. 1.3). Shortly afterwards, the no less important collection owned by the imperial envoy Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, dominated by Greek manuscripts that he had purchased in Constantinople (Cat.VI.2, VI.3), was also acquired for the Hofbibliothek.

The many and varied sources from which the library’s holdings are drawn make it possible to paint a comprehensive picture of specific areas of focus – such as the Bible in the Middle Ages under the spotlight here – from a number of different angles. The collections built up by Austria’s ruling princes, which centred around luxury manuscripts prized, in many cases, not just for their sumptuous illumination and materials but also for the glory they reflected upon their owners, thereby represent the glittering showpieces. From the monastic libraries, with their more scholarly, theological focus, stem many examples of exegetic literature. The present library is enriched, lastly, by its acquisition of manuscripts from scholars and educated individuals who had themselves acquired them out of a humanist interest in the broadest sense.