Anna Amalia, the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, lives on in the name of the ducal library that she moved to the present buildings – in the 1760s, she was also responsible for building the magnificent rococo hall where the core of the collections are.
Goethe was a librarian here for 35 years and stares at you from almost every wall (above left and center). He also doubled the number of volumes to 80 000 – these days there are about 1 000 000 volumes. Naturally the focus of the collections is on German litterature (like Schiller, above right), including the world’s largest ’Faust’ collection to keep Goethe from turning in his grave. There is also a 10 000 volume Shakespeare collection that was started in Anna Amalia’s time (she is below left).
The library was seriouisly damaged and about 50 000 volumes destroyed in a fire in 2004. Happily, the building was restored quickly in three years, although the preservation of the damaged volumes took considerably longer, until 2015.
The rococo hall (above) of the library is frequently listed among the world’s most beautiful. Below right is a detail of the ceiling.
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