Library

One of the integral parts of the Regional museum in Teplice is its library. It has been existing along with this instituion for more than 100 years. If the criteria of a museum or a gallery work is its displayed collections („spectacle“), library work is best characterised by the old Latin inscription above the entrance to the Baroque hall of the beautiful monastery library in Osek „Non spectatulo sed usui“-„Not for spectacle, but for use.“ The special museum library appeared in Teplice after taking over the book collection of the former town museum, founded in 1897 in Teplice, and cleaning up of the so-called „haulage funds“. In 1949 it possessed 9,356 volumes in the main fund and 12,000 in the general reserve. During the following 60 years it was enlarged to 80,000 volumes. The base for every day work of various specialists is the scientific litarature (26,000 volumes). The library of the Regional Museum in Teplice is filed at the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, and being the basic library with special funds is on view for all users, no matter if it is a museum professional or an amateur. The library sees to the collections of the old prints, manuscripts, bibliophily and regional literature. Besides these activities it has in charge two historical libraries – the chateau library in Teplice and the monastery one in Osek. The collection of old prints, that is, the books published from 1501 to 1800, is enlarged now and has the prints published up to 1860, which on the whole makes it more than 2,000 prints. The core of the collection is the books found by the first curator of the museum A.H.Fassl at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. In 1950´s the fund was enlarged due to the books from the abolished parishes in Bohemia. Later the collection was enriched by gifts and systematical purchases of Bohemical literature and books published in the past in our region. The most unique books can be found in the collection of manuscripts which contains only 120 volumes, but the two hymn books of the Czech literary brotherhood ( published in 1560 and 1566 ) are a real treasure not only for the museum, but first of all for the town of Teplice itself. They are highly sugnificant for the understanding of the Czech hisotry and culture. These voluminous richly ornated pergameneous books were made by Jan Táborský form Klokot Mountain. In his Prague workshop Matěj Pecka from Klatovy wrote texts and notations, and the artist Fabian Puléř from Ustí nad Labe richly illustrated the volumes. For foreign research workers the most interesting are rear handwritten lists of spa guests published in the XVIII century. The „youngest“ collections of the museum library are bibliophilies and fascimiles. This fund was formed in 1977 with the intention to document the renewal and development of the Czech book culture with the accent on the art of bookbinding in the XX century. Although small, the collecion exemplifies the works of the best Czech authors, printers, publishers and book-binders. Besides the books from the bookbinding workshops of the Jiroutovs, professor Blažek, Karl Dudesk, Jan Vrtilek, father and son Hodny, it contains the perfect bindings of the professor Indrich Svoboda from Brno and the graphic experiments of his pupil Jiří Hadlač, whose books-objects exceeded the limits of mere, but sensitively mastered craft of book-binding.The collecion is supplemented by the bindings of fascimilies – copies of rare manuscripts. One can find there reproductions of Vyšehrad codex, Dalimilov Chronicles and copies of richly decorated „Clock“ by the Duke of Orleans and other rare books which exemplify the cultural inheritance of the past. Two more libraries are an organic part of the museum, they are the Cistercian monastery library in Osek (24,000 volumes) and the fund „Teplice“ (18,000 volumes) consisting of the former chateau library of Clary-Aldringens and the collection „Goethe – Schiller“. The Ministry of Culture of the Czech republic declared the both historical libraries cultural monuments. They contain quite a number of rare prints, often of respectable sizes and weighs. The chateau library was founded in the middle of the XVII century by the heirs of the field marshal Jan Aldringen, who got Teplice domination in 1634 for his help to the Emperor against Valdštejn. At the time of Jiří Mark Clary-Aldringen the collection was systematized for the first time. The oldest handwritten catalogue mentions 809 titles, mostly scientific, among which there are a lot of books devoted to natural science. Latin and French manuscripts with pharmaceutical and alchemistic contents are now the only conserved document about the activities of a mysterious person – the alchemist Bartolomeus Mencelius – during his stay at the Teplice Chateau at the end of the XVII century. The unique Baroque interior with the furnishing of the library of the end of the XVII century has been also conserved since that time in the tower of the chateau. As for the contents, these books are the most interesting and belong to the oldest ones in the used- to- be large chateau library, they are mostly works on natural science of the XVI-XIII centuries, when after the Thirty Years´ War the owners of the chateau tried to renovate it with the help of mineral riches of the country. That is why, besides the accessions to the library, the unique mineralogical collection was also enlarged, but unfortunately it hasn´t been conserved till now. At the beginning of the XIX century the profile of the book collection greatly changed. In particular Karel Josef Clary-Aldringen added to the library a collection of drawings, engravings and litography, partly coming from the collections of his grandfather Prince Charles de Ligne. The original furnishings of the library in Clary´s palace in Vienne ( the first half of the XIX century) were also preserved. After the chateau had been sold, the furnishings were installed into the rooms of the former garden theatre in the western wing of the Teplice Chateau, where now there is the museum library. A very interesting part of the chateau library is a small book-collection of the famous Austrian diplomat Karl Ludvik Ficquelmont (1777-1857). A. S. Pushkin often visited his salon in the Austrian Ambassy in Petrograd. This buildng and Ficquelmont´s wife Darja, nee Tiesenhausen, the granddaughter of the famous general Kutuzov, became an inspiration for the poet, when he described the scene of the action in „The Queen of Spades“ and the character of Tatiana in his poem „Eugene Onegin“. Another cultural monument, which is in charge of the museum library, is the Baroque library of the Cistercian monastery in Osek, which is the oldest surviving library of our region. During the 800 years of the monastery´s existence books accompanied the monks´everyday life, because, according to the rules, hours of hard manual labour were followed by hours devoted to studies and reading books. The accessions to the library were gained by the abbot Laurentius Knittl, called Scipio, and the abbot Benedikt Littwerig, who in 1725 invested in the library so much, that it acquired the look of a richly decorated Baroque salon. The fund contains interesting and famous works concerning various sciences, often in beuatiful Reneissance, Baroque or Rococo bindings. Although the Latin motto above the entrance to the monastery library incites „Not for spectatle but for use“ even today we still admire the spectacular richly decorated Baroque furnishings. Besides the mentioned above collections and funds of specialized literature, the collection of regional literature is also in great demand. It was founded under the name „Tepliciana“ in 1890´s (5,000 volumes). With every year the number of readers, scholars and book loans increases.The library also takes part in museum presentations by organizing exhibitions and lending its collections for the similar institutions in Bohemia and abroad. The library has its own e-mail address where you can send your questions: knihovna.muzeum@seznam.cz

PhDr. Jana Michlová