The Imperial Library/Peter Lambeck

I wish to investigate the Imperial Library as a centre of medical knowledge and its role in the Republic of Letters through the case study of Peter Lambeck`s papers. The aim of my project is twofold. First, I intend to assess the role of the Imperial Library in the acquisition, development, and transmission of medical knowledge under Lambeck`s librarianship, 1663-80. Secondly, I plan to scrutinise the role of the Imperial Library in the introduction of Vienna into the Republic of Letters through Lambeck`s extensive network of correspondents across Europe. Crucial to the fulfilment of both aims is the analysis of the Lambeck papers. They are kept in the Manuscript Section of the Austrian National Library, and consist of several boxes of well indexed and fully searchable primary material, which, however, has never been put to the uses mentioned here. The Lambeck papers allow one to follow Lambeck`s daily running of the library, from acquisition and cataloguing of new material to the settling of accounts; from meetings with the Emperor to notes about library users. They contain information about ways of using the library collections; for example by reading the material on site, by borrowing it, or, perhaps, by testing it in the laboratory nearby. Indeed, the Lambeck papers also offer an insight into the other research facilities which were housed in the same building; namely, the alchemical laboratory and the Emperor`s collections of natural and artificial objects. The Lambeck papers also contain Lambeck`s correspondence with scholars both in Austria and abroad. These papers, therefore, are an essential means by which to research the role of the Imperial Library in the intellectual life of the city in various domains. I am interested in the acquisition, preservation, development, and transmission of medical knowledge in particular, as well the role of the Library in the Republic of Letters. I believe that I can begin to fill the gaps in these two fields of study by focussing on Peter Lambeck and his papers.