Library of the Benedictine Abbey of Muri-Gries
The history of today`s Benedictine Abbey Library Muri-Gries begins long before the order`s arrival in Bozen in 1845. From 1406 to the Bavarian-Napoleonic uprising in 1806 the Augustinerchorherren [Ordo Canonicorum Regularium Sancti Augustini] occupied the building on “Grieser Platz” after their monastery was destroyed by a flood. They collected the founding stock of the current library. Even today approx. 5,000 objects can be verified as being part of the original stock by means of the hand written indication of ownership.
The Benedictines brought a second founding stock with them. Also displaced by state abolishment and in winter 1841 driven from the Canton Aargau in Switzerland, the monks could only take what they had in their cells with them. Before their violent expulsion the monks had time to move a, for them, valuable part of the library to their cells. Numerous incunabula, cinquecentine as well as handwritten inscriptions bear witness to this.
Since the second half of the 19th century The collection has been systematically extended by the monastery`s in-house school [up to 1970] this means that the collection has grown to approx. 70,000 volumes and is continually expanding.
Bibliography:
Angelika Pedron – Klara Tutzer, Die Bibliothek des Klosters Muri-Gries, Brixen 2011
Contact
Grieser Platz 21
I-39100 Bozen
Phone: [+39] 0471 401305 [Library]
[+39] 0471 443600 [Porter]
Fax: [+39] 0471 443577
Email: bibliothek.muri-gries@dnet.it
Website: www.muri-gries.it