\nPad\u00e1nyi Bir\u00f3 M\u00e1rton, Bishop of Veszpr\u00e9m, 1751<\/em> \u2013 this handwritten inscription can be found in hundreds of volumes of the Archiepiscopal Library of Veszpr\u00e9m. The foundations of our institution were laid by this energetic 18th-century bishop, a patron of the arts and sciences, who decided to establish a library. The original collection of 607 volumes \u2013 compiled with the significant assistance of his Viennese agent, Istv\u00e1n Tessedik \u2013 was housed in a room next to the chapel of the episcopal residence in S\u00fcmeg.
\nHis successor, Bishop Ign\u00e1c Koller, built the episcopal palace in Veszpr\u00e9m, of which most beautiful parts is the library room on the upper floor of the north wing, beside the chapel. It was here that the bishop\u2019s 1,671 volumes were arranged.<\/p>\n
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The development of the collection gained new momentum at the end of the 19th century under Bishop K\u00e1roly Hornig. He had Pad\u00e1nyi Bir\u00f3 M\u00e1rton\u2019s books brought to Veszpr\u00e9m and, with the help of his bookagents in Budapest and Vienna, greatly enriched the library with numerous new publications. By the time of his death, the library\u2019s holdings exceeded 17,000 volumes. Between the two world wars, Bishop N\u00e1ndor Rott appointed his master of ceremonies, Dr. R\u00f3bert Schwartz, as librarian in 1928, leading to the creation of the first author and subject catalogues after years of work.<\/p>\n
The Archiepiscopal Library of Veszpr\u00e9m not only preserves and maintains the Episcopal Library but also the Chapter Library, rich in valuable and rare works acquired through the purchases and bequests of canons since the 18th century. The library of the diocesan seminary, founded in 1711, is also part of the institution. The core of this collection was transferred during the reign of Joseph II to Pozsony (today: Bratislava, Slovakia) and later to Pest, from where it was returned to Veszpr\u00e9m. Over the centuries, it continued to grow \u2013 one of its most valuable treasures being Migne\u2019s Cursus patrologiae<\/em>, both the Latin and Greek series. The library also preserves the musical core collection of the Veszpr\u00e9m Cathedral, containing valuable 18th\u201319th-century musical manuscripts and prints.<\/p>\n The collection includes 4 codices, 26 incunabula, 343 16th-century volumes (the so-called \u02bdantiqua\u2019 books), 18th\u201319th-century periodicals, 116 Hungarica<\/em> works, and 144 titles listed in the R\u00e9gi Magyar K\u00f6nyvt\u00e1r<\/em> (Old Hungarian Library), along with several valuable series such as directories and yearbooks. Archives of the Archdiocese of Veszpr\u00e9m<\/strong> The Cathedral of Veszpr\u00e9m \u2013 whose sacristy housed the archives \u2013 suffered several fires and damages during the Middle Ages, resulting in the destruction of part of the documents. The episcopal archives and the chapter archives of the body of canons were separated in the 13th\u201314th centuries when the latter became an own legal entity. With the approach of the Ottoman threat, the two archives were also separated geographically: in 1544 the bishop placed his archives in S\u00fcmeg, while the chapter placed theirs in Sopron.<\/p>\n In 1628 Bishop Istv\u00e1n Sennyei restored the functioning of the chapter in Veszpr\u00e9m, and shortly afterwards resumed its activities as a place of authentication. The chapter\u2019s archives were once again housed in the cathedral, where they remained until the early 20th century, later being moved to the canon houses in the castle, the Franciscan friary, and finally the episcopal palace.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n An inventory of the early holdings of the chapter archives was made in 1781; its property records were organized and described in the 1850s, and in 1903 Dr. J\u00f3zsef Lukcsics archivist, diocesan priest revised the section containing the most valuable medieval charters. After 1948, the section of the chapter archives serving as a place of authentication was nationalized. Its contents were transferred in 1972 \u2013 along with the archives of other ecclesiastical institutions in the county \u2013 to the Veszpr\u00e9m County Archives. The other part of the chapter archives, the private archives of the body, came under the supervision of the episcopal archives in the late 1960s. In 1993, when the diocese was elevated to the rank of archdiocese, Archbishop Dr. J\u00f3zsef Szendi merged them with the episcopal archives.<\/p>\n The episcopal archives followed a different path: due to the Ottoman threat, the bishops resided in S\u00fcmeg until the episcopate of Ign\u00e1c Koller, and so the archives only returned to Veszpr\u00e9m in the late 18th century, where they were placed in the episcopal palace. The last major change in the collection occurred in 1777, when the newly established dioceses of Szombathely and Sz\u00e9kesfeh\u00e9rv\u00e1r received parts of the documents from Veszpr\u00e9m corresponding to their territories. The history of the episcopal archives remained eventful in the 20th century: at the end of the Second World War, they suffered minor damage, and between 1951 and 1957 they were administered jointly with the county archives by state officials. In the 1960s they were declared as specialized archives, and in the same decade the National Catholic Collection Centre was established, tasked with coordinating the work of Catholic archives. An important step in preserving the archival materials was the restoration, under the direction of Dr. L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Kredics, then episcopal librarian-archivist, of most of the medieval charters of the bishopric and the chapter between the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following changes in legislation, in the mid-1990s the ecclesiastical archives operating as specialized archives became public private archives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Veszpr\u00e9m Archdiocesan Library and Archives comprise two institutions with centuries of history, whose roots reach back nearly a thousand years to the \n <\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-94","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/94\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/15-1-300x200.jpeg\")
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\nWith its 65,000 volumes, the Archiepiscopal Library of Veszpr\u00e9m serves as a public ecclesiastical reference library, dedicated to preserving and fostering the cultural heritage of the archdiocese, along with its printed and intellectual traditions.<\/p>\n
\nIn Veszpr\u00e9m, charters have been preserved since the foundation of the diocese \u2013 for more than a thousand years. Since the establishment of the Christian Hungarian kingdom, the Church has taken care to record its rights in writing and to preserve these documents, while certain ecclesiastical bodies, acting as places of authentication, issued officially recognized charters. One of the priceless treasures of our archives is the deeod of gift of Sir Guden, dated 1079, which bears witness to this tradition.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dev.vfkl.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1-300x199.jpeg\")
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