Libraries and Archives

Collecting, cataloguing, and archival practices became much more systematic in the nineteenth century, which was representative of significant scholarly networks. Focusing on the holdings of some important nineteenth-century institutions, along with some well-known collectors of the period (François-Joseph Fétis in Brussels, Giuseppe Baini in Rome, and Karl Proske in Regensburg), as well as unfamiliar figures such as William Horsley in London and Pehr Frigel in Stockholm, this chapter highlights a range of concepts that underpinned collectors’ strategies. Drawing on Raphael Kiesewetter’s 1834 categorization of collecting practices, notions of the “ancient,” the “obsolete,” and the “curious” are discussed, and tensions are highlighted between the ideas of completism and of canonicity. Additionally, Aleida Assmann’s work on “cultural memory” allows us to reconsider the “latency” of archival materials, along with the accessibility of such items within nineteenth-century culture.