This is the story of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library as a major archive and scholarly resource from its inception in the sixteenth century to the present. Readers are taken on a tour of the library’s collections and premises, starting in the historical building and the Renaissance Hall now housing the Cranach exhibition. From there, they proceed to the famous Rococo Hall of 1766, the Book Tower, the underground stacks, and the new Study Centre with the Book Cube of 2005. The miscellaneous collections presented here range from that of manuscripts which predate book printing to pamphlets of the Reformation period, from the world’s largest Faust collection to the charred books salvaged from the ashes of the fire of 2004 that have since been restored.

With contributions by Arno Barnert, Annett Carius-Kiehne, Andreas Christoph, Alexandra Hack, Rüdiger Haufe, Stefan Höppner, Reinhard Laube, Katja Lorenz, Christian Märkl, Christoph Schmälzle, Veronika Spinner, Claudia Streim, Ulrike Trenkmann, Jürgen Weber, Erdmann von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf