Letters and Individual Documents of Famous Personalities (Autogr.Cim.)

This collection of more than 600 letters and individual documents of famous personalities represents the most valuable part of the Bavarian State Library's autograph collection, which comprises a sum total of approximately 36,000 items. A note by King Ferdinand II of Aragon from 1505 may well be considered as the oldest item; the most recent letters date from the mid-20th century. The collection includes autographs of regents and statesmen, composers and visual artists, writers and poets as well as scholars and philosophers. The largest sections of the collection are the letters of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, composer Richard Wagner and philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Among these letters the one by Friedrich von Schiller addressed to Christian Gottfried Körner may be considered as one of the most significant pieces, as Schiller describes here his first encounter with Goethe.