This hushed building is one of the world’s best reference libraries for 17th-century books. Its exhibition spaces feature two changing curated exhibits of antiquarian books and a permanent installation on the typography of Hermann Zapf (the inventor of the font Palatino and others), plus a collection of huge medieval globes. Type nerds and bibliophiles will be in heaven.
The library's collection of 800,000 volumes includes what’s billed as the ‘world’s most expensive book’ (€17.5 million at the time of purchase in the 1980s): the Welfen Evangelial, a gospel book once owned by Duke Heinrich der Löwe. The original is only on show sporadically, but an impressive facsimile is permanently displayed in the vault on the 1st floor.
