Heidelberg University

16th century, Otto Henry, Elector Palatine, combined the miscellaneous book collections accrued since the foundation of the university with the princely library housed in Heidelberg Castle to form the Bibliotheca Palatina and made them publicly accessible in the galleries of the Heiliggeistkirche. Among these collections, inherited records of the Fuggers (Augsburg, Ulrich Fugger the Elder) wereof particular importance. The majority of the library holdings, which enjoyed great contemporary renown, was looted during the Thirty Years' War, transported to Rome and was gifted to Pope Gregory XV by the victorious Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria in 1622. After the secularization in 1804, the holdings of the monasteries of Salem and Petershausen formed the foundation of the reconstruction of the library collection in the 19th century. In 1816, 847 German-language manuscripts from the Bibliotheca Palatina returned to Heidelberg. As part of an exchange, the Codex Manesse, which had ended up in the Royal Library in Paris, …