German Gymnasium Library Book Fund
Bibliographic material from German Gymnasium Library - Kaiserlich-Königliches Staats-Gymnasium
The German Gymnasium - Kaiserlich-Königliches Staats-Gymnasium in Triest
The German Gymnasium, in its last name Kaiserlich-Königliches Staats-Gymnasium in Triest, had been established in Trieste in 1841; from 1876 it was housed in the building in Piazza Lipsia (now Hortis), built to house also the other German high school, the Royal Gymnasium and the German popular (elementary) school. The last year of regular activity of the school was 1917/18; in the following school year there was first an interruption due to the Spanish influence and then the final closure with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the suppression of state schools in Trieste with German language instruction. The Gymnasium was a boys-only state school, providing an eight-year education for further studies. Following a model common throughout Europe, teaching was centred on the classical Greek and Latin tradition. The language of instruction was German, but Italian, Slovenian and related literatures were also taught. Religions were also taught: Catholic, Evangelical and Jewish. As can be seen from the acquisition reports in the yearbooks, the school library was divided into two sections: A) Die Lehrer-Bibliotek, organised into at least 18 thematic sections and with texts in different languages, with a clear predominance of German and B) Schülerbibliotek, divided into three sections according to language (German, Italian or Slovenian).
History and education
In the humanities libraries of the University of Trieste there are two historical, closed sections named BGT and known as consisting books that belonged to the German Gymnasium of Trieste. The sections identified and studied so far come from the libraries of the Institutes of Classical Philology and Philosophy and are kept in the Library of Humanities and the Library of Philosophy, Languages and Literature respectively. No documents have been found testifying to the University's acquisition of books from the Gymnasium library. An important trace for the reconstruction of the affair can be found in the report for the recognition of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy sent in September 1945 by the University to the Allied Military Government (Prot. No. 483 Pos. no. 3 dd 4 September 1945, a document reported in: Anna Maria Vinci, Inventing the future: the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy of the University of Trieste, EUT 2001). Annex C, which describes the endowments of the eight Institutes at the time, states that the Faculty and the Institute of Classical Philology entered into negotiations with the Civic Library and obtained the Management's favour to receive from it duplicates of classical texts and the Library of the former German Gymnasium, which at the time was evidently on deposit at the Civic. It is unclear if and when the transfer was formalised; it was probably a donation rather than a deposit, and probably only part of the school's library. Certainly at that time, the newly established Faculty of Arts and Philosophy, active since 1943, was strongly committed to finding the bibliographic resources needed for its scientific activities quickly and without excessive expense, and thus to implement the Institute libraries, which were just being formed. By examining some of the specimens and especially the inventory registers, it became clear that the collection, evidently acquired after September 1945, had arrived at the University before 15 February 1946; on that date, in fact, the first entry of a volume verified as belonging to the collection appears in the centralised register of University books. Thus, without an indication of provenance, other volumes, probably from the Gymnasium, are later recorded. Only later, on 27 May 1946, does the provenance 'Library of the German Gymnasium' appear, and finally from 28 June 1946 the volumes are systematically recorded with the provenance indication 'Library of the German Gymnasium transferred from the City Library'. For almost all of them, the register shows in the 'Annotations' column the initials of the recipient library, mainly Classical Philology, but also Philosophy, History, Glottology. It is therefore clear that the entire collection was inventoried in the general register of the University with the initials Bi. and was then distributed to the most relevant institute libraries, even if the annotation of the destinations is discontinuous or incomplete.
Collections received at the University
The collection of the Classical Philology section was catalogued in the SBN system during 2023 and 2024, maintaining the original locations in the two sections BGT I and BGT II, consisting of 1929 and 354 issues. The books were inventoried a second time in the Institute's register, with the provenance University Library, since the central offices had already acquired and sorted the entire collection. In the historical card catalogue by authors, the cards can still be found, which are double inventoried with initials Bi. and Fl.C.; however, there is no topographical list. The books in section I bear the stamp of provenance of the Gymnasium and in particular of the Lehrerbibliothek on the title page. The chain number is printed prominently in blue pencil on the title page and the same number is also found in pencil on the Institute's inventory register. During the recent cataloguing, it was found that most of the missing chain numbers are fortunately not lost, but are otherwise located in the Philosophy section, as if this allocation had been decided after an initial allocation of the entire collection to the Library of Classical Philology. These are mainly volumes of Greek and Latin literature with didactic value. The books in the BGT II section have different characteristics, such that one may believe that they did not belong to the German Gymnasium. In fact, they do not have the chain number written in blue pencil, but above all they do not have the stamp of the Gymnasium but different stamps, carefully blackened, in some of which the indication 'Professors' Library', in Italian, is legible. In addition, in the section, consisting mostly of Latin and Greek literature texts, there are also editions from years after the school closed, from 1920 to 1940. They could possibly be duplicates of classical texts mentioned in the 1945 report, and in any case at least some of them come from an Italian school that has not yet been identified. In the absence of more precise elements, they have been kept in the BGT historical collocation. In Philosophy the books are found in the section called B.G.T. (163 chain no.), to which is added a small B.G.T./Per. section (11 titles). The collected materials concern the school system, didactics and pedagogy, disciplines that were included in the Institute of Philosophy at the time. The inventory of the library of the Institute of Philosophy bears no trace of these volumes; they are present in the old topographical card catalogue without inventory numbers; they do not appear in the author catalogue.
Enhancement
All volumes belonging to the sections were catalogued or revised during 2023 and 2024 and entered into the national SBN system. They were linked to the owner named Kaiserlich-Königliches Gymnasium in Triest, with a total of 2299 bibliographic records. A complete scan of the work 'Schiarimenti sull'arte della ginnastica con un avviamento agli esercizi elementari' (Trieste 1864) was carried out.
Remarkable/noteworthy items
The sections contain 587 antique books, 1677 modern books and 20 periodicals. It is worth mentioning - among other things - the presence of the only copy in Italy of the work Varia Historia by Claudius Elianus (1668), as well as three works by Michelangelo Rustia on the teaching of physical education, understood as a discipline aimed at psychophysical well-being and no longer at military training, in line with the prevailing trends in the territories of the Austrian Empire.
List of 1684 modern books in the BGT Fund of the humanities libraries:
List of the 595 antique books in the BGT Fund of the humanities libraries:
Essential reading
Scuola e confine: le istituzioni educative della Venezia Giulia 1915-1945 / Adriano Andri
Contributi per una storia delle istituzioni scolastiche a Trieste
Jahresbericht des K.K. Staats-Gymnasiums in Triest, pubblicato dal 1850 al 1914.