RepOD

GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND AIMS

This dataset presents a collection of Nicolaus Köppen’s manuscripts and books. It consists of three .xlsx files containing tables showing, in order, Nicolaus Köppen’s book collection (“1. Private Library”), the list of headings from his private notebook (“2. Loci Communes [headings]”), and the dissertations (“3. Dissertations”) in which he participated as praeses or respondens.

TABLE 1. Private Library

After Köppen's death, his book collection initially came into the possession of Petr Ahlwardt (d. 1793), an 18th-century professor of logic, mathematics, and philosophy, from their shared alma mater in Greifswald. After Ahlwardt’s death it became part of the university library, as evidenced by characteristic entries in blue or red crayon on the lower covers of the books and by the traces of missing labels with the characteristic call numbers on the spines (Fig. 1).

The main part of the library was reconstructed mostly on the basis of the provenance research of the books from the University of Greifswald, now kept in BUMK, by Maria Strutyńska "Proweniencja greifswaldzka XVI-XVII w. 16-17 w." (BUMK, manuscript without bookshelf number). This was supplemented by Małgorzata Milewska-Kozłowska’s (BUW) handwritten notes on Köppen's provenances. Random checks of the references in the Codex excerptorum (BUMK 152/IV, see Tab. 2) with the contents of the Nicolaus Copernicus University Library show that there are many more. They do not always bear provenance marks, but the handwriting of the notes in the margins points to Köppen (e.g. BUMK Ob.7.II.6667). One single book was found so far also in Książnica Pomorska (KP ST1882 XVII.8643.I).

In the excel file, the books that are bound together are grouped and marked with different colours. These were collected at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, as can be seen from the bindings (see photo). The subject has been described as briefly as possible to allow a preliminary overview of the collection.

In the section on provenance marks, I omit contemporary library ownership marks, as these are indicated by the place of storage (Bookshelf number). I mark uncertain readings of the names of owners with [?]

The notes and copy specific description section indicates the presence and types of Köppen notes and ownership marks (see Fig. 3), as well as copy specific details such as provenance marks, notes by others, type of binding, including e.g. repeated but unidentified handwritten provenance (Fig. 2).

TABLE 2: Loci Communes (headings)

List of headings present in the Codex excerptorum iuxta methodum a Drexelio in Aurifodina sua praescriptam adornatus et Phrasium Exerptis adauctus a M. Jacobo Wolffio, Schol. Gryphiswaldensis Senat-Conrectore (BUMK 152/IV, see Fig. 4), and described by an additional two columns mirroring two types of pagination present in the manuscript: Köppen's (Pages) and that assigned by librarians (Folios). This is due to the fact that Köppen stopped numbering at the end of the first part of the Codex.

This is only a list of the headings loci communes, without enumeration of the extracts and their contents. The original punctuation has been retained, as Köppen used dots to separate different words and commas to separate grammatical endings within a family of words (e.g. Olea, -um, -iva, -re). When a single heading occupied two pages of the manuscript, the order of individual grammatical forms and/or words often changed, but I have not included these changes in the table, as they are only relevant to the internal organization within a single page of the notebook (division into three columns according to the Jeremias Drexel method desribed in Aurifodina artium et scientiarum omnium: excerpendi sollertia [The Mine of all Arts and Sciences: The skill of excerpting], Antwerp: Ioannes Cnobbarus, 1638).

Transcription convention:

I do not retain “v” in the function “u”, I expand abbreviations and acronyms by marking them with square brackets [ ], I mark additions and conjectures with angle brackets < > and describe the change in the Remarks column. [Add:] means addendum in heading role.

TABLE 3: Dissertations

So far, I have identified 49 dissertations that can be linked with Köppen published between 1689–1736 in Wittenberg and Greifswald. Due to the difficulty of clearly determining the actual contribution of teachers and students to this type of publication, I have listed publications in which he is listed as praeses (44) and respondens (5). The first point of reference when collecting data on Köppen’s dissertations was Jöcher’s bibliography (1810), which was then collated with information from Biederstedt (1822), Fiebig (1847) and online library catalogues and bibliographies, especially those from the Greifswald University Library, VD17, VD18, USTC and HPB. The Identification number column refers to those given in the catalogues used according to the following hierarchy: VD17/VD18 ® USTC ® HPB, if absent in mentioned ones I referred to 19 century bibliographies, indicating the author and page number. The transcription or transliteration appears as it appears in the catalogues (hence words in Hebrew appear in two alphabets). In some cases, dissertations with separate title pages and paratexts, but presumably printed at the same time, were given a common bibliographic call number in the catalogues (e.g. HPB DE-601.GVK.305209868). However, as the primary objective of this dataset was to list all of Köppen's students and their dissertations, these were treated as individual entries.

Dissertations were often difficult to identify because their titles almost always began with a Hebrew phrase. The lack of uniform spelling of surnames (e.g. Köppen, Koeppen, or Köppe) and first names (e.g. Nicolaus or Nikolaus) in catalogues and bibliographies also made the task more difficult. Not all dissertations in 19th-century sources (Jöcher, Fiebig) could be identified, so those missing from modern catalogues have been marked in grey. I have occasionally added extra information in the 'Remarks' column. For instance, I have included details about Johann Friedrich Mayer's role as an additional supervisor of the disputation ('sub moderamine J. F. Mayeri'; see Fig. 5), as well as reviews of the disputation that appeared in 18th-century journals. These reviews are listed after the GJZ database, and the identification numbers are referenced after it.

Bibliography (including the abbreviations used in the tables):

Libraries and Archives:

• BML – La Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon
• BS – Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
• BUMK – Biblioteka Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika
• BUW – Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warszawie
• KP – Książnica Pomorska
• SB – Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin
• SLUB – Sächsische Landesbibliothek–Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden
• UBK – Greifswald Universitätsbibliothek
• UBR – Universitätsbibliothek Rostock

Databases and catalogues:

• DB-MV – Die Digitale Bibliothek Mecklenburg-Vorpommern https://www.digitale-bibliothek-mv.de/viewer/search/
• GjZ – Gelehrte Journale und Zeitungen der Aufklärung [Scholarly Journals and Newspapers in the Age of Enlightenment] (Göttingen Academy of Sciences), https://adw-goe.de/gjz18/datenbank/
• Heinsius – Wilhelm Heinsius, Allgemeines Bücher-Lexicon oder alphabetisches Verzeichniss der in Deutschland und den angrenzenden Ländern gedruckten Bücher, nebst beygesetzten Verlegern und Preisen, Vol. 2: F-L, Leipzig 1793
• HPB – Heritage of the Printed Book Database https://kxp.k10plus.de/DB=1.77/
• IxTheo – Index theologicus https://ixtheo.de/
• Jöcher – Christian Gottlieb Jöcher, Fortsetzung und Ergänzungen zu Christian Gottlieb Jöchers allgemeinem Gelehrten-Lexicon, Vol. 3. [K-L], eds. J. C. Adelung, H. W. Rotermund, Delmenhorst: Jöntz 1810
• OKUG – Online-Katalog der Universitätsbibliothek Greifswald https://opac.lbs-greifswald.gbv.de/LNG=DU/DB=1/
• USTC – Universal Short Title Catalogue https://www.ustc.ac.uk/
• VD17 – Das Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts http://www.vd17.de
• VD18 – Digitalisierung und Erschließung der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 18. Jahrhunderts https://vd18.k10plus.de

Bibliographies and secondary sources:

• Biederstedt, Diederich Hermann. Nachrichten von dem Leben und den Schriften neuvorpomerisch-rügenscher Gelehrten seit dem Anfange des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts bis zum Jahre 1822, Greifswald 1824       
• Fiebig, Otto, Corpus dissertationum theologicarum sive catalogus commentationum, programmatum aliarumque scriptionum academicarum ab antiquissimo usque ad nostrum tempus editarum, ad exegeticam, dogmaticam, moralem ac reliquas disciplinas theologicas spectantium, Leipzig: T.O. Weigel, 1847
• Östlund, Krister, Förteckning över Uppsala universitetsbiblioteks utländska dissertationssamling (-1799) (accessed 5 December 2023)
• Schröder, Hans. Lexikon der hamburgischen Schriftsteller bis zur Gegenwart, Vol. 5: Maack – Pauli, Hamburg 1870
• Strutyńska, Maria. Struktura Proweniencyjna Zbioru Starych Druków Biblioteki Uniweryteckiej w Toruniu : Przewodnik Po Zespołach: Problemy Badawcze i Metodologiczne, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Toruniu (Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 1999), 19–24.

The following photographs are included to illustrate the collection:

Fig. 1: Partly reconstructed private library of Nicolaus Köppen held in Nicolaus Copernicus University Library.

Fig. 2: Unidentified provenance mark present in Köppen's books.

Fig. 3: Provenance mark of Nicolaus Köppen in Das Narrenschiff (Stultifera navis) by Brant, Sebastian (1457–1521), Basel: Johann Bergmann, 1498 (ISTC ib01091000).

Fig. 4: Exemplary heading (Oratio, -ori. Sermo. Rhetor, -ica) from Köppen's notebook (Nicolaus Köppen, Codex excerptorum iuxta methodum a Drexelio in Aurifodina sua praescriptam adornatus et Phrasium Exerptis adauctus a M. Jacobo Wolffio, Schol. Gryphiswaldensis Senat-Conrectore, BUMK 152/IV.)

Fig. 5: Sample dissertation by Köppen "sub moderamine J. F. Mayeri" entitled Taan al h-elht be-jad ha-e mim m-al Elhm Jahwe, i.e. Demonstratio Dei Trinunius e. l. Josuae XXII. 22. Ope Accentuum, Greifswald 1710 (VD18 1149512X).