Treasure house of scholarship – Modern information centre With
holdings comprising of approximately 9 million volumes and
90,000 manuscripts, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek is one of
the most important collections of sources on an international
level, a first-class destination not only for scholars but
reaching people from all over the world. The library was founded
in 1558, by Duke Albrecht V, and quickly grew to become the
largest court library in Germany. In the year 1803, it was
expanded by two valuable acquisitions. Firstly, the extremely
rich court library of the Electors Palatine was transferred from
Mannheim to Munich. Secondly, books and manuscripts from
monasteries dissolved during secularisation and from secular
territories brought under Bavarian rule, the heritage of a
thousand-year-long history, were integrated into the Munich
library. As a result, the court library of the Wittelsbach
family became one of the most comprehensive collections in
Europe. With regard to manuscripts and early printed