Trew Library

Trew-SammlungThe library of Christoph Jacob Trew, an 18th century physician and scientist of Nuremberg, is one of the largest private collections of science books in the German-speaking countries. Over several decades he gathered 34,000 books, relating mainly to medicine and science, 19,000 scholarly letters dating from the 16th through the 18th centuries, as well as an extensive natural history collection, which he bequeathed to Altdorf University. During his lifetime, he gave 3,000 duplicates of books that were already in Altdorf University to Erlangen University. After the dissolution of Altdorf University in 1809, almost the entire Trew library as well as his collection of scholarly correspondence were transferred to Erlangen (1818). Both have been housed in Erlangen University Library ever since.

Especially worth mentioning are 13 volumes of botanical drawings (H62/MS 2380) which were mainly commissioned by Christoph Jacob Trew.

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