The Warsaw library of Missionary Fathers in the main home of the Order, the Holy Cross Church at Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street (Outline)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33077/uw.25448730.zbkh.1992.433Keywords:
Congregation of the Mission, the Warsaw Library of the Congregation of the Mission at the Holy Cross Church, monastic book collections, sources to the history of monastic libraries, Warsaw libraries in the 18th century.Abstract
The state of studies on the Warsaw library of Congregatio Sacerdotum Saecularium Missionis (Lazarists) is presented in the paper. The origin of the library is probably linked to the arrival of the order to Poland and succeeding to the post at the Holy Cross church in Warsaw. The library ceased to exist independently in 1864, when the Tsarist authorities in occupation annuled the order. The library flourished during the Englightenment, when father Piotr Jacek Śliwicki (1739-1774), a member of bishop Józef Andrzej Załuski's circle of friends and collaborators was prior of the convent. When he was at the office, the collection increased from 1500 to ca. 12,000 volumes. Before its decline it grew to some 40,000 volumes. A large part of the collection has been preserved until today.
The paper contains some reference to materials which has not yet been known and utilized as sources. Opinion of the contemporary to the library or more recent authors was quoted to define its historical value and rank. The research will be continued, and will probably come to reveal the meaning of the Library for the history of the Church and scholarship in Poland in the 18th and 19th century.
