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Prussian Cultural Heritage

In the current project mostly watermark reproductions from the "Ziesche" collection are made accessible. To this are added the tracings from the cataloguing projects carried out in recent years at the manuscript department of the SSB. In total, the contribution of the SSB amounts to approximately 5,000 reproductions.

The "Ziesche" collection kept at the SSB represents a comparatively self-contained inventory grown over decades as the result of development work undertaken by one of the outstanding experts of the subject matter. Eva Ziesche has dedicated herself to an intensive study of paper since 1970 as an employee in the manuscript department of the SSB-PK. She attracted special attention in professional circles through her collaboration in developing methods of electric radiography for the reproduction of watermarks and likewise through her publication of a catalogue of Friedrich Hegel’s written heritage. Among a variety of materials the "Ziesche" collection contains approx. 3,500 watermark reproductions suitable for the WZIS; approx. 1,000 beta radiographies – largely originating from incunabula – as well as 2,500 rubbings and tracings ordered by topics originating from medieval and more recent manuscripts and incunabula.

This collection is supplemented by other watermark reproductions from studies carried out in the manuscript department of the SSB. Some are from the collection’s own stock, but the majority of these represent catalogued manuscripts from other institutions. Among these approximately 1,500 additional reproductions are judged suitable for inclusion in the WZIS. Besides manuscripts from Greifswald and Rostock (approx. 450), some libraries in the Rhineland play a prominent role, e.g. the Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Bonn (ULB), the Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz (LHA) and the Stadtbibliothek Trier (StB).

Contact:

Dr. Robert Giel
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
Handschriftenabteilung
Potsdamer Str. 33
D-10785 Berlin
Email: robert.giel@sbb.spk-berlin.de