The Bongarsiana/Codices section consists of the internationally important collection of French humanist and diplomat Jacques Bongars (1554—1612), including 650 mediaeval and Early Modern manuscripts and about 150 fragments which come largely from monasteries in and around Orleans and Strasbourg. There are also a further 3000 printed items which are in the care of the Centre for Historic Collections of the University Library of Berne. After Bongars’ death, the book collection went to his heir, the Strasbourg son of a banker Jakob Graviseth, who married the daughter of Berne’s mayor, Salome von Erlach. That was how the Bongarsiana collection went first from Strasbourg to Basel and then in 1632 came to Berne’s library.
The old Bernese collection includes 125 manuscripts from monasteries that were dissolved during the Reformation and from the private libraries of scholars and members of the clergy. Donations and acquisitions added about 200 European manuscripts to the collection, mostly from the Early Modern period, as well as 60 Oriental, 40 Greek and 30 Hebrew manuscripts. Today the Bongarsiana/Codices section comprises over 1100 manuscripts. Please book in advance to use the collection. 118 digitised manuscripts can be viewed via the virtual manuscripts library e-codices.
