Collecting Medical Books in 16th-Century Kraków

Justyna Kiliańczyk-Zięba (Jagiellonian University in Kraków)

In my paper I look at medical libraries (transnational by definition) that were owned by learned physicians active in Kraków at the end of the 16th century. I focus mainly on a substantial library of Anton Schneeberger (1530-1581), a Zürich-born medical doctor and a former disciple of Conrad Gessner, and present information about the collections of his Kraków colleagues as they provide circumstantial, additional evidence. Using both the inventory of Schneeberger library and the surviving copies that nowadays can be identified as once belonging to him, I examine the spaciality and sociality of medical book circulation asking the following questions: Where did the volumes comefrom? How long did it take their owners to acquire books printed in centres of scholarly publishing? What were the sale channels and networks? What was the role of second-hand acquisitions and the circulation of books beyond the commercial market?