Aspects of content

Bongars assembled his library in accordance with the humanist tradition, including all fields of knowledge at that time.

The theology section contains biblical texts in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Arabic, Spanish and Catalan. The famous Complutensian Polyglot Bible contains the New Testament in Greek and Latin from 1514 (the first print!). There are various writings by and about church fathers, about the Catholic church or the Popes and pamphlets on questions of faith.

Works on medicine include books on cooking, wine, pestilence, herbs and remedies, a number of alchemistic titles, for example, by Andreas Libavius, Ram-n Lull, Lucas Rodargirus and Leonhardt Thurneisser zum Thurn. All the classic names in medicine, such as Celsus, Dioscorides, Galenus, Hippocrates and Theophrastus, are represented.

The academic field of jurisprudence includes Roman and Germanic sources of law with the "Corpus juris civilis" and the "Lex Salica" and ecclesiastical law with the "Corpus juris canonici", including a number of appropriate annotations. Naturally, writings by Jacques Cujas and François Hotman, with whom Bongars studied, are also included.

The liberal arts, with more than 1,800 titles, constitutes a significant and diverse field; Hortin's catalog contains an introduction by the philosophers. Most prominently represented is Aristotle. There are a number of philological works, the most famous being Colonna's "Hypnerotomachia Poliphili". Bongars' interest in languages is reflected in the "Grammatici" section with dictionaries and grammar books in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, and naturally also in French, German, English and Polish. There are also lexica in these languages, as well as in Tuscan, Spanish and Bohemian-Hungarian [missing!]. A Latin-Greek-Hungarian lexicon bears a personal dedication to Bongars by the author, Molnar. Reference is also made to a "Thesaurus Polyglottus" by Megiser, in which the entire vocabulary known at that time was recorded. 90 prints of Cicero are currently included (excluding those that were said to be of Cicero but are not). This makes Cicero the author most prominently represented in the Bongarsiana; at the same time, it is clear his work continued to set an example in Bongars' era.

Mathematics and arithmetic are represented by authors including Boethius, Euclid (with 13 prints), Michael Psellus and Michael Stiefel, geographers include Dionysius Periegetes, Pomponius Mela, Ptolemaeus, Ortelius, and Strabo. In astronomy, we find names such as Brahe, Firmicus Maternus, Galilei, and Kepler - in architecture we find Alberti, Androuet du Cerceau, Palladio, Ramelli, and Vitruvius (various editions by him with each being translated into French and Italian). The "Politici" section in Hortin's Clavis is understandably extensive, including works by Frederick II "De arte venandi", Hemmerlin "Opuscula" and "De nobilitate", Rosello "Cosimo de'Medici", the "Cortegiano" by Castiglione in an edition dating back to 1545, and Machiavelli's "Principe" printed in 1537, not forgetting Garzoni's "Piazza" and an Italian translation of Juan Huarte's "Examen de ingenios para las sciencias". Writings on the war include authors such as Brancaccio, Lipsius, Ramus, Valturio and Vegetius. However, Dürer's "Befestigungslehre" was already missing from the catalog in 1811! Bongars owned some books on nautical science, numismatics, weights and measures, and agriculture.

Historia: with almost 2,600 titles, this is the largest section. There are catalogs, such as the edition of Conrad Gesner's "Bibliotheca universalis" edited by Fries in 1583 and Pandects published in 1548, but also, catalogs of collections of manuscripts in Oxford and Cambridge (published by Thomas James), in Augsburg (D. Hoeschel) and in Munich (J.G. Herwart von Hohenburg). Representations of historical sources for antiquity include three editions by Diodorus Siculus; Jewish history is represented by four complete editions by Josephus Flavius. Church history contains a "Jesuitica" group, containing more than 100 prints. This subject was of huge interest to Bongars, as he saw great danger in the Jesuit movement. He collected pamphlets on specific issues, treatises, publications about the Jesuits in France and Poland, and about their missions in Asia and South America. He also owned the rules of Ignatius von Loyola. Another subject close to Bongars' heart on which he also worked intensively is the history of the Crusades and the Holy Land Crusades (see his collection of source material "Dei gesta per Francos"). For his edition of the "Epitome Pompeii Trogi" by Justinus, he used various codices and prints. In addition to his own edition of 1581 and a later edition of 1591, five different prints are available, including a Spanish translation.

The history of the Orient mentions two Latin editions of Haython's "Historia Orientalis" and the French translation "Fleurs des histoires" published in 1517. This subject group includes an impressive number of Turkish prints. Bongars' extensive collection of Messrelations (a forerunner of the newspaper) is a contemporary history specialty. This news was published every six months at the Frankfurt spring and fall fairs by writers, including von Eitzing, Framen, Francus, Friedlieb, Löw, Lorch, Meurer and Striegel. Then come sections on Roman, Germanic and Gallic history. Naturally, the latter is full of countless political pamphlets. In the appendix to the new main catalog (on microfiche) the prints referring to the religious wars of 1560-1600 (thesis by Françoise Belart) are documented chronologically. Bongars also owned "Mer des histories" in 4 volumes, the "Chroniques" by Philippe de Commynes, annotated by Guillaume Budé, and another annotated by Johannes Sleidanus. An edition of the "Buève de Hantone" from 1502 is another rarity.

To beginning

Documents about Great Britain and Italy (many prints on the conflict between Pope Paul V and the Venetian Republic) come next. Literature on Spanish and Portuguese history completes the collection.

Poetica: Various literary texts have also been placed in "Liberal Arts" and in the "Appendix". Bongars collected the arguably preferred classical literature: Greek works in his collection include those of Hesiod, Homer, Pindar and Plutarch, Roman works include editions by Catull, Horaz, Juvenal, Lucan, Martial, Ovid, Persius Flaccus, Valerius Flaccus and Virgil and works of comedy and tragedy include plays by Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, Lycophron, Sophocles, Plautus and Terenz. Pierre Daniel's personal copies of his edition of "Querolus" (cataloged under Plautus, pseudonym) are particularly precious. In French literature attention should be drawn, for example,  to Lemaire de Belges and his "Temple d'honneur", or to an edition of "Vergier d'honneur" published c.1500. The Italians Ariosto and Petrarch are represented and Fernando de Rojas's  "Celestina" is also worthy of note in its Spanish edition as well as an Italian and French translation.  Bongars owned the works of Roswitha von Gandersheim in the famous Nuremberg edition of 1501 with woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer and Wolf Traut. The comedy "Pathelin" can be traced in the Latin transcript by Johannes Reuchlin in a Parisian print from 1543. "Poetica" and "Artes Liberales" both include publications by Scaliger, both father and son.

Appendix: Dante is represented in an Italian print from 1531 with the "Feast of Herod", Rabelais is represented with "Gargantua" in a Lyon print from 1535. Again, we find the farce "Pathelin" here, this being the original French text. "Grobianus and Grobiana", a Latin satire by Dedekind and a "Musicae practiae" by Rogge are also located here. Of the three editions of "Arcadia" by Philip Sidney, originally cataloged by Hortin, one print from 1598 remains.

In the appendix, there is a subsection entitled "Libri erotikoi", this was allegedly plundered by an enthusiast around 1770; that which remains includes, for example Scioppius' edition of the "Priapeia" collection and Boccaccio's "Decamerone".

By Margaret Eschler