A Path to the Depths of Centuries: Dedicatory Inscriptions on Books of the Gersdorff Library as a Guide to Her History

The article examines dedicatory inscriptions on two Latin-language editions from the family library of the German noble family of the Gersdorffs, which is partially stored in the collection of the Rare Book Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences Library (RDRB RASL). These books are devoted to church history and canonical law which represents the range of intellectual interests of their owners, and have a rich history of existence in the Pietist environment, which can be traced thanks to dedicatory inscriptions from different times. Before the first of them — “The Chronicle of Pforta, in two volumes...” (1612) by Justin Bertuh ‒ ended up in the library of a prominent Saxon statesman of the 17th century Nikolaus von Gersdorff, it changed several owners. Initially, the author presented the newly published edition to the elected quaestor in Eckersberg, John Glitius, characterizing in his inscript the existing relationship between them as comradely. Then it ended up in the possession of a some Nikolai Solomon Trott from Schleisingen-Henneberg and in 1691 he presented it to his namesake Nikolaus von Gersdorff. The second book is the work of the famous Saxon lawyer, poet and composer Caspar Ziegler, “Dowry to churches and his rights and privileges. Canonical Diatribe” (1676). The author gave her directly to Nikolaus von Gersdorff, with whom he maintained friendly relations. The history of the Gersdorf Library has not yet been written. However, the study of specific copies with dedicatory inscriptions and owner marginalia makes it possible to partially fill this gap and thereby enter another episode into the process of formation of private book collections, characteristic of the intellectual history of the early modern period in her movement towards the Enlightenment.