Det Danske Bibliotek Eller Fortegnelse Paa Alle de Danske Skrifter/ som ere trykte baade inden og uden Lands/ fra det første Bogtrykkerier kom i stand i Dannemark/ indtil sidst i forige Seculo, hvilcke alle findes samlede i det Danske Bibliotek Som dend Høy-Ædle og Velbaarne Frøken Frøk. Karen Brahe/ til Østrup-Gaard/ Patronesse for det Adelige Jomfrue-Kloster i Othense/ haver foræret til forbemelte Kloster. Herhos findes ogsaa De Lærde Folkes/ som enten selv have sammenskrevet Bøgerne eller og oversat dem af andre Sprog i Danske/ deres Levnets Beskrivelse korteligen Anført.
Inbunden bok.
Gott skick. Kiøbenhavn [= Copenhagen], P. J. Phœnixbergs bogtrykkerie, 1725. 4to. [16] + 193 pp. (as always, page number 32-33 is omitted and 189 used twice). Worn contemporary half calf, 19th-century paste paper on boards, remnant of MS title label on spine, evidence of damp to rear board and front edge of board slightly damaged, endpapers renewed, occasional spotting, worming to lower margin of the first few leaves, not affecting text. The library documented in this catalogue is the result of the efforts of two generations of 17th-century Danish intellectuals and bibliophiles, both of them women. The foundation of the library can be established to ca. 1613, when Anne Gøye (1609-1681), at the time four years old, was given a book by her mother. Gøye continued collecting books throughout her life, through acquisitions, gifts and inheritance. Three weeks before her death, she bestowed the library to her brother’s granddaughter Karen Brahe (1657-1736). According to a catalogue from about 1686, the collection encompassed well over 1000 books, including 76 in MS. Karen Brahe kept the collection intact and enriched it with new acqusitions. When asked by a fellow book collector if she would sell him some 100 books, she replied “It is not a question of money - in this, I am myself a Liebhaber, and would much more like to add to my Danish books than to part with them”. Before her death, the library was gifted to the Odense adelige jomfrukloster, a Lutheran collegiate foundation for unmarried noblewomen founded by Brahe. The collection is still intact and now placed in Roskilde Bibliotek. Early modern libraries in Scandinavia consisted to a large part of books in foreign languages. This was almost a necessity, since books printed in the national languages were few. But Gøye and Brahe concentrated their collection on books in Danish. 16th-century books in Danish are all rare, and some of them are known today only in the copy of Karen Brahe. In accordance with the collectors’ interests and the history of early printing in Denmark, a large portion of the books are on theology, but there are also sections on history, philosophy, politics, medicine and mathematics. Manuscripts are listed on pp. 154-159, and biographies of authors and translators are printed on pp. 159-193. This catalogue offers unique and fascinating insights to literary culture and collecting, from a woman’s perspective, in early modern Europe.
