Library

Theological Faculty’s Library

The Manuscript’s Department and The Old Print

The manuscript’s department and the old prints belong to the Theological Faculty’s Library, though they are preserve in the archive as the deposit. The base of this deposit is composed of former books’ collection, which used to be the property of Chapter’s, as well as the parish and convent’s library. Almost all of this books was left in Poland by the German government during World War I. Some of them were taken by Germans to the Royal Library in Berlin. Consequently our library in 1939 counted over 200.000 volumes, together with the collection of manuscripts from XIX and XX century.

During Second World War, in October 1940, the whole collection were taken by German government and transported to the Saint Michael’s church, which was transformed into the warehouse. During four years the books mostly was scattered in Poland and Germany. The main part of the whole collection, which was left in St. Michael’s church burned down. The library had lost over 40.000 old prints and lots of books and volumes like: Patrologia Migne’a (383 volumes), Acta Sanctorum (53 volumes), Concilia Germaniae, some codex and many others which were very important for the history and theology science. However from the turmoil of war, some of the incunabula and manuscripts was saved.

 Nowadays the archives collection preserves 2.097 manuscripts from XII – XX century, 799 incunabula and 3.508 old prints from XVI – XVIII century. Mostly all of them are catalogue.