19/08/2026
Following an inspiring trip to Alsace’s incredible Humanist Library of Sélestat Mike, Senior Librarian, reflects on his journey, drawing fascinating links between its collection and our historic Chained Library. Read the full article below 👇🏻
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Humanism and the Chained Library
One of the many exquisite historical settings in Europe is the incredible “Bibliothèque Humaniste” or Humanist Library of Sélestat, in Alsace.
The main body of books belonged to a pioneer of the embryonic printing movement of the 1400’s, Beatus Rhenanus, which he donated to his hometown of Schlettstadt, now known as Sélestat.
Rhenanus (pictured below) was a German humanist, religious reformer, classical scholar and book collector, born in Sélestat in 1485. He played a major role in the establishment and success of the printing house owned by his friend, Mattias Schurer, and later with the Basel-based printing houses Amerbach and Froben (also his friends) as translator, corrector and editor. He also had a hand in works by contemporary writers, conscientiously overseeing a new edition of Erasmus’ collected works. All together, they published texts by Italian Humanists.
In our own Chained Library, we have ten books by these two Humanist printing houses: nine books from the Froben Press dating from 1522 to 1569, of which eight are by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. The other is by Salvianus, an elegant ecclesiastical writer of the 5th century, born in Treves, Italy. Our oldest printed book in the Library, Saint Anselm’s “Opuscula beati Anselmi archiepiscopi Cantuariensis ordinis Sancti Benedicti”, was printed in 1495 by the Amerbach Press in Basle.
In all, we have thirty-three books printed in Basle, and nine in the other great Humanist printing city of Geneva.
Our collection also includes six books printed by Schureri in Wittemberg and Leipsig, printed between 1610 to 1636. Although our Library is not of the scale of the Rhenanus bequest, we think (what a surprise) that our collection of over 500 books, with its diverse range of not just religious works but also those of a secular nature, offers a huge array of the thoughts and achievements of the human mind and intellect of the Renaissance up to the Georgian era.
Mike Twomey
Senior Librarian
