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Perthes Collection

Perthes Collection

The Perthes Collection, acquired by the Free State of Thuringia with the support of the German Federal Cultural Foundation in 2003, forms the core of the modern holdings of the Gotha Research Library. It comprises the holdings of the Justus Perthes Geographic Publishing Houses in Gotha and Darmstadt as well as those of the Hermann Haack Geographic Cartographic Publishing House in Gotha, a publicly owned company. The Justus Perthes Publishing House was founded in 1785 in the connection with the Gotha court. Perthes took over the publishing of the Gotha Court Kalendar/Almanach de Gotha, which became the most important lexicon of the European aristocracy in the 19th century.


The scientifically interested Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg collected atlases and geographic literature and invited Franz Xaver von Zach, one of the most famous astronomers of his time, to Gotha. Zach built Germany’s first freestanding astronomical observatory on the Seeberg hill in Gotha and trained the Gotha court lawyer Adolf Stieler in cartography. In 1810, Stieler presented Justus Perthes with the idea of an atlas, which made the Perthes Publishing House one of the leading cartographic and geographic publishing houses of the 19th and 20th centuries. Beginning in 1855, the publishing house became internationally renowned through its journal Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen.

The Perthes Collection documents the last phase of the Age of Discovery, in which the interior of the non-European continents and the polar regions were explored. At the same time, it provides unique insights into the map production of the 19th and 20th centuries.

From the collection

Unique documents shedding light on publishing and book history in the German-speaking areas.

The over 200-year history of the Perthes Publishing House is reflected in the correspondences of the publishers, the files of the management and the publishing departments, architectural documents, anniversary publications, photo albums, and even the family keepsakes of the publishers. At the end of the 19th century, the architect Bruno Elbo expanded the buildings of the publishing house and fundamentally redesigned them. His ink drawing is the cover image of a photographic commemorative volume that the employees dedicated to their publisher Bernhard II Perthes dedicated in 1885 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Perthes Publishing House.

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Insights into the Perthes Collection

The movie titled “Kartenmacher aus Gotha” (Mapmakers from Gotha)

The documentary film “Die Kartenmacher aus Gotha” was produced by Joachim Jäger and Otto Schuurman (D/NL 2016), along with audiovisual and text-based materials that accompany it (1989-2015).

 

Explore the digital exhibition “Maps – Knowledge – Sea”

Using objects from the Perthes Gotha Collection and the Map Collection of the German Maritime Museum, the exhibition shows how sea and ocean maps have become media of globalisation since the turn of the 19th century.

 

Further reading

  • Petra Weigel (in Verbindung mit Haim Goren/Bruno Schelhaas/Jutta Faehndrich (Ed.): Das Heilige Land in Gotha. Der Verlag Justus Perthes und die Palästinakartographie im 19. Jahrhundert, Gotha 2014.
  • Petra Weigel: Die Sammlung Perthes Gotha (= Patrimonia, 254), Berlin 2011.
  • Imre Josef Demhardt: Der Erde ein Gesicht geben: Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen und die Anfänge der modernen Geographie in Deutschland. Katalog zur Ausstellung der Universitäts- und Forschungsbibliothek Erfurt/Gotha im Spiegelsaal auf Schloß Friedenstein in Gotha 23. Juni bis 9. Oktober 2005, Gotha 2006. 

Contact Information


University of Erfurt | Gotha Research Library
Friedenstein Palace
Schlossplatz 1
D-99867 Gotha

bibliothek.gotha(at)uni-erfurt.de