The scholarly monks of Rheinau monastery

Incunabula, printed works and manuscripts

The library of Rheinau monastery was dissolved in 1864 and many of the manuscripts and books were transferred to the cantonal library in Zurich. The monastery’s collection included 270 medieval codices, almost 1,000 early modern manuscripts and around 13,000 printed works. This exhibition presents some of its unique treasures to the general public for the first time. Its principal focus is on the holdings from the 15th to the 19th centuries, following on from a presentation of the medieval manuscripts at the ZB in 2003.

The treasures of the Rheinau library also include some 300 works printed before 1500 and dating from the earliest days of book printing, known as incunabula. Among them are textbooks for schools and volumes on various aspects of monastic life and theology. Six of the incunabula are unique; others feature attractive illuminations. These early works were specifically categorised at Rheinau monastery in the 18th century and catalogued by Pater Blasius Hauntinger (1762–1826).

Theological works predominated in the medieval monastery library, but in the early modern era books on history came to the fore. The monks continued to preserve liturgical works, breviaries and prayer books, but in addition to philosophy, theology and canon law they also collected works on ecclesiastical, monastic, aristocratic, local and Swiss history, hagiography, genealogy, heraldry, numismatics and the natural sciences. Of particular note is the previously unknown personal library of the Conventual Georg Sebastian Harzer von Salenstein (d. 1611) of Konstanz, which he bequeathed to the monastery.

The exhibition also offers the first ever insight into life at the monastic school, with a particular focus on pupils’ dramas. The previously unresearched account books of the abbots reveal details of everything from the monks’ diet to expenditure on and management of the library, which has been reconstructed in two dimensions with the aid of modern computer graphics. In a world first, the exhibition presents forgotten music fragments from Rheinau that came to light when the organ was being restored between 1988 and 1991. A selection of views explore the various ways in which the monastery has been depicted in images since the 16th century, while the 18th-century estate plans shed light on agricultural usage and property ownership within what was then the district of Rheinau.

Museum of the Month September 2009

For this exhibition, the Zentralbibliothek Zürich was voted Museum of the Month for September 2009 by the Zurich Museums Association.