Katarzyna Pekacka-Falkowska (Poznan University of Medical Sciences)
After the demise of Johann Philipp Breyne (1680-1764), a renowned naturalist from Danzig (present-day Gdańsk), his and his father’s private library was put up at auction. The Bibliotheca Breyniana was sold in two parts (1765 and 1766) to various buyers from German-speaking lands, Russia, Polish Prussia, etc. In one of the copies of the auction catalogue Bibliothecae Breynianae […] Sive Catalogus Librorum Philologico-Philosophico-Historicorum, Itinerariorum, Inprimis autem Medicorum, Botanicorum Et Historiae Naturalis Scriptorum &c. Rariorum, etc., now in the holdings of the Gdansk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences, we find information on sale prices of numerous books, manuscripts, copperplates, etc., amassed by the Breynes. Also, numerous letters to and from J.P. Breyne, provide extensive information on the prices of books he was buying for himself and/or his friends and the books his friends were buying for him (sometimes as gifts). The prices are a source of information about the book market and book economies (also affective and cognitive ones). In my paper, I examine the cost and value of a scholarly library amassed by the Breynes.