English Editions and Works by English-Speaking Authors in Sigismund Zois’s Library

Abstract

Baron Sigismund Zois of Ljubljana (1747–1819), who played a key role in the cultural and scientific advancement of the Enlightenment in Carniola, acquired an extensive book collection. Most of this collection, comprising 2,295 titles in approximately 5,000 volumes is now kept at the National and University Library in Ljubljana. This paper analyses a less known segment of Zois’s library, the English editions and works by English-speaking authors that make up more than ten per cent of his collection, in relation to his scientific interests and to other specific circumstances. An attempt is made to reconstruct the acquisition channels for these English editions, based on Zois’s remaining personal documents and correspondence. The collection was dispersed through the stacks during the 1820s and 1830s, and is currently being reconstructed as a part of the celebrations marking the 200th anniversary of Zois’s death.

The Enlightenment in Carniola, and Sigismund Zois's Circle

Baron sigismund Zois (1747–1819) was an entrepreneur, a natural scientist, an inventor, a book collector, a patron of the arts and sciences, a philologist, the wealthiest person in eighteenth-century Carniola, and one of the key figures of the Enlightenment period. Born to a merchant’s family in Trieste, he received his primary and secondary education in Reggio Emilia. He moved to Ljubljana in 1765, where he began studying natural and applied sciences with the Jesuits, Gabriel Gruber (1740-1805) and Joseph Maffei de Glatfort (1742–c.1807). He eventually took over the family trading company, as well as several estates, ironworks, and workshops.¹ He was actively engaged in the time’s vivacious intellectual movement, which coincided with enlightened reforms of the Hapsburgs, as well as with some of his contemporaries’ agendas for improvements in education, culture, and science in Carniola.²

Zois made a few journeys to Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, France, Italy, and other European countries in the 1770s, during which time he established relations with numerous European naturalists and entrepreneurs and acquainted himself with the latest trends and innovations in natural and applied sciences. Having fallen ill with gout around 1780, he resided thereafter mostly in Ljubljana.³ He founded there a literary salon and turned his focus upon the making of a contemporary grammar and vocabulary of the Slovenian language, which would foster the development of education in the country, as well as of local literary and scientific endeavours.⁴ During the next two decades, he gave systematic support to the different scientific and cultural projects of his contemporaries. His circle of friends and members of his salon, with whom he also shared the library, included Feliks Dev (1732–1786), Balthasar Hacquet (1739 or 1740–1815), Jurij Japelj (1744–1807), Blaž Kumerdej (1738–1805), Jernej Kopitar (1780–1844), Anton Tomaž Linhart (1756–1795), Valentin Vodnik (1758–1819), Jakob Zupan (1785–1852), and many others.⁵ He sponsored Japelj’s translation of the Bible, Linhart’s plays and his Versuch einer Geschichte von Krain und den übrigen Ländern der südlichen Slaven Oesterreiches, Kumerdej’s Slovenian grammar, Kopitar’s Grammatik der Slavischen Sprache in Krain, Kärnten und Steyermark, the first expeditions to the peak of Mount Triglav, which were carried out by Balthasar Hacquet in 1777, 1779 and 1782, as well as other scientific projects, including a few foreign publications, such as Marcus Elieser Bloch’s Allgemeine Naturgeschichte der Fische (Berlin, 1782–83).⁶

Zois also wrote poetry and a couple of zoological and botanical taxonomies and studies, but only one of his texts, a description of Proteus anguinus, was ever published, and that was done anonymously.⁷ In 1801, his contribution to the discovery and observation of the Proteus was mentioned a couple of times in Karl von Schreibers’s article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.⁸ Zois was a member of several European scientific societies, such as the Gesellschaft Naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin and the Jenaer herzoglich-mineralogische Societät, and kept up a correspondence with over one hundred scientists, explorers and literati, such as, Joseph Paul von Cobres, Giacomo Casanova, Déodat de Dolomieu, Jean-François de Galaup de Lapérouse, Friedrich Mohs, Abraham Gottlieb Werner, Ignaz von Born, Scipione Breislak, Pavle Solaric, and Francesco Maria Appendini.⁹

Many European literati, natural scientists, as well as some prominent political and military figures of the time visited Zois in Ljubljana, making his home a unique crossroads of Germanic, Romanic, Slavic, and other cultural influences. Foreigners, including the English-speaking travellers who were asking about the noteworthy places to visit in Carniola and the neighbouring regions, were usually directed to his palace.¹⁰ Among his personal guests were Friderich Mohs, Déodat de Dolomieu, Martin Heinrich Klaproth, Déodat de Dolomieu, Friderik van der Nüll, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, Grand Duke Johann, Count Frederick Saur, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, General Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont, Charles Nodier, and Admiral John Duckworth.¹¹ Just before Zois’s death, Sir Humphry Davy also stayed at his palace for a brief time during one of his European journeys.¹²

Although Zois was involved in many different ways in the cultural, educational and scientific advances of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, his endeavours and agendas did not involve any reforms that would change the current political circumstances. He and the members of his circle directed their efforts almost exclusively towards improvements and progress within the existing social and political order, a typical reflex of the German enlightened aristocracy’s modus operandi. The Napoleonic occupation of Carniola between 1809 and 1813 rendered Zois’s feudal status insecure, and caused him significant financial problems. In spite of everything, he remained the most influential figure of the period, and strove to maintain good relations with the French authorities.¹³ He welcomed the restoration of the monarchy in 1815, but none the less advocated for the formation of the separate South-Austrian Slavic peoples’ political entity within the Austrian Empire in the next year.¹⁴ Despite his Austro-Slavic and monarchist political standpoints, Zois and the members of his circle are often regarded as the forerunners of the Slovenian nationalist movement, which only began in earnest during the March Revolution of 1848.¹⁵

Zois’s most notable legacy includes a world-renowned collection of minerals (now kept at the Slovenian National Museum) and an extensive book collection (now kept at the National and University Library in Ljubljana).

Libraries in Late Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Carniola

Zois was by no means the only man in Carniola to own or form a significant collection of books in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. Several libraries, including the first two public scientific libraries, flourished at the time. Since literacy was only gradually improving after Empress Maria Theresa introduced obligatory primary schooling in 1774, these collections were kept and used only by a small percentage of population.¹⁶

The Seminary Library was established in 1701 by the members of the Academia Operosorum, who strove to modernize the city by setting up new cultural and scientific institutions. The idea of establishing a public scientific library accessible to the wider public was initiated by the Ljubljana cathedral provost, Janez Krstnik Prešern, who was also a founding member of the Academy. The founding charter of the new library was signed by Prešern, by Sigismund Cristophorus Herberstein, bishop of Ljubljana, and by the dean of the cathedral, Janez Anton Dolničar. The members of the Academy agreed to bequeath all their books to the library. This diverse collection of ecclesiastical and secular books, including numerous precious manuscripts and prints, had come to comprise approximately 7,000 volumes by the second half of the eighteenth century.¹⁷ When the Lyceum Library was opened to the public in 1794, the collection remained available to the students and the professors of the Ljubljana Seminary.¹⁸

The predecessor of the National and University Library, the Ljubljana Lyceum Library, was primarily used by students and staff but was also open to external users. It contained part of the disbanded Ljubljana Jesuit College library, which had burned down in 1773, donations by Ljubljana vicar- general Karl Peer, and by other prominent individuals. It also contained large parts of the libraries of Stična and Kostanjevica Cistercian monasteries, the Bistra Carthusian monastery, the Ljubljana Augustinians and the Discalced Augustinians, and the library of the episcopal residence at Gornji Grad.¹⁹ All of these were handed over to the Ljubljana Lyceum by the individual imperial decrees during Joseph Ws administrative reforms, with the Imperial Library in Vienna taking the most valuable manuscripts and prints.²⁰ Although the collection was extensive in comparison with other Carniolan libraries of the time (its holdings amounted to 7,538 titles in 12,386 volumes by the end of the eighteenth century), it lacked contemporary literary and scientific works.

In 1787, the Lyceum Library acquired the collection of the Carniolan Agrarian Society, which was established in 1767 and strove to promote various agricultural, educational and industrial institutions, including a public library. The members of the Society were purposely acquiring an ambitious choice of contemporary editions, especially from the fields of applied sciences. The Society was dissolved in 1787. Its property was transferred to a debt fund and a part of its book collection comprising 572 titles in 2,086 volumes was handed over to the Lyceum Library the next year.²¹

The libraries of the mendicant orders, which were considered to be important agents in the educational and pastoral activities among the common people, were mostly not affected by Joseph II’s reforms. Three of the largest libraries of the time were in the Franciscan friaries of Ljubljana, Kamnik, and Novo mesto. Each held approximately 6,000 volumes. There were also larger book collections in the Škofja Loka and Ljubljana Capuchin monasteries, and the convent of St Clare in Ljubljana.²²

Two larger aristocratic private collections of the period besides Zois’s were the Library of the Auersperg Counts in Ljubljana (3,057 titles in c.7,000 volumes) and Baron Erberg’s Library in the Dol castle near Ljubljana (c. 6,000 volumes).²³ The Auersperg library was a typically Baroque collection, which almost ceased to develop after 1700, while Joseph Kalasanz Erberg’s collection was a contemporary aristocratic collection.

Libraries of various sizes were also part of the mansions and castles of the Carniolan nobility as well as the townhouses of the educated townsfolk and clergy, including the members of Zois’s salon, and his other acquaintances, such as Balthasar Hacquet, Anton Tomaž Linhart, Abraham Jakob Penzel, and Valentin Vodnik. Most of these were eventually sold at auctions, taken abroad or dispersed in different instances of political turmoil and wars.²⁴

After having moved to Vienna, Zois’s protégée Jernej Kopitar (1780–1844) began to build a private collection, which eventually comprised 1,925 works in 2,022 volumes.²⁵ He was an avid collector of philological works, emphasising Slavic texts, and Old Church Slavonic texts, including the famous Codex Supraseliensis.²⁶ The Lyceum Library bought the collection from his heirs in 1845.²⁷

The first circulating library operated in Ljubljana from 1795 onwards. It was run by the Kleinmayr family of printers, publishers and booksellers. It offered natural and applied sciences, philosophical works, theological and devotional works, manuals, novels, poetry and plays, leisure and entertainment literature, children’s books, and travel and exploration accounts. One of the preserved catalogues from 1795 lists 262 works, mostly in German.²⁸

Though these book collections of Carniola and the Carniolans ranged from extensive and quite heterogeneous (the Lyceum Library, the Seminary Library, the Auersperg and the Erberg libraries), to specialized (Kopitar), none of them were as up to date as Sigismund Zois’s. Because it was available to anyone who was interested in contemporary literature and natural science it also partially compensated for the deficiencies of the Lyceum Library.

Zois’s Library

Sigismund Zois probably began to collect books when he was in his twenties. His primary book suppliers were the publishers, printers and booksellers Wilhelm Heinrich Korn, Georg Licht, Alois Raab, Ignaz Alois Kleinmayer, and Johann Friedrich Eger from Ljubljana, Christian Friedrich Wappler, and Karl Friederich Beck from Vienna, as well his various Italian booksellers and acquaintances, such as Andrea Tintini or Pavle Solaric from Venice, and Raffaele Zelli.²⁹ Andreas Clemens and Alois Raab Ljubljana were his regular bookbinders.³⁰ Zois occasionally attended book auctions, like those of Japelj’s, Penzel’s and Linhart’s libraries, and engaged several acquaintances and members of his circle to search for Slovenian and other manuscripts and prints locally and abroad.³¹ Some of his books like Foresti’s Supplementum chronicarum from 1491 (which he bought from Jan Christian Sepp in Amsterdam in 1782), contain short notes stating the price and date of acquisition.³²

There are also numerous references to books in Zois’s correspondence and documents. Personal archives and letters show that the majority of Zois’s collection was acquired between the 1770s and the 1790s. They also show that he bought many books to support the research activities of his acquaintances and the members of his salon. During the last couple of decades of his life, he had to reduce his book purchasing because of the mounting financial problems he had been facing since the 1790s. In 1815, he even considered selling his books to the Lyceum Library or the Joanneum in Graz. In October 1819, he made a separate list of his Slovenian and Slavic manuscripts and prints which he wished to donate to the Lyceum Library.³³ He finally decided to sell the library to his nephew and heir, Karl, who eventually sold most of the collection to the Lyceum Library, after the Court Study Commission approved the purchase on 9 April 1823. It was handed over to the library after 24 July 1824. Karl also kept a part of the collection for himself.³⁴

The contemporary natural sciences, including mineralogical, botanical, zoological, chemical, and physical works in Zois’s library—most of which were written by the most prominent European naturalists——comprise approximately forty per cent of Zois’s collection now kept at the National and University Library. The natural sciences are followed by the applied sciences, such as mining, metallurgy, agriculture, economy and trade, which make up approximately fifteen per cent of the collection. Following that are geography, including maps, atlases, navigational and seamanship manuals, travel and exploration accounts, diaries and itineraries (around thirteen per cent). Next come various historical works (around ten per cent), which are followed by old but also contemporary works in the Slovenian language, and other Slavic languages comprising grammars, dictionaries, philological treatises, novels, poems, plays, ecclesiastical works, and devotional literature. There is also some philosophy, classical and contemporary literary works in various languages, numerous works of reference, individual treatises on art, politics, mathematics, theology, and law, as well as over seventy contemporary scientific, literary, and political periodicals. Approximately two thirds of the collection are either first, second or third editions, published from the 1760s to the 1810s. German editions by German authors and German translations of works originally published in other languages form the vast majority (1,039 titles). Next are works in Latin (435 titles), and French (300 titles). Works in English—either originals or translations—take fourth place in the collection, comprising 233 titles. They are followed by works in Slovenian (172 titles), works in Italian (163 titles), works in different Slavic languages, and individual works in other languages, such as Spanish, Dutch, and Swedish.³⁵

With the linguae francae of the Carniolan aristocracy being German, Latin, Italian, and French, it is quite extraordinary to find so many English books in a Carniolan library, even when dealing with a cosmopolitan polyglot such as Sigismund Zois, who was fluent in German, Italian, French, Latin, and Slovenian. The number of English-language works in the Lyceum Library prior to the acquisition of Zois’s collection in 1823 was negligible. The Library was arranged into nine main subject groups, and the new acquisitions were added to the existing groups according to the numerus currens system.³⁶ The number of titles in the Lyceum Library in 1825 was 14,376.³⁷Judging from the shelf numbers, the Lyceum Library kept approximately 250 works in English in the mid-1820s, which means that more than ninety per cent of them were acquired with Zois’s library.

Only a couple of Carniolans knew English or possessed some books in English in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century. Among them were Zois’s protégée Jernej Kopitar, for whom Zois hired a private English tutor in the 1810s and who visited London and Oxford in 1815, Abraham Jakob Penzel, who was a member of Zois’s salon from 1793 to 1798, and Matija Čop (1797–1835), who was a philologist, the Lyceum Library’s chief librarian, and an enthusiastic book collector.³⁸ However, none of these had a substantial collection of English editions and works by English-speaking authors.

It is not known when and where Zois learned English or how well he knew it. He could have hired a private tutor during his schooling in Reggio Emilia or after he had moved to Ljubljana. No documents, which would reveal his personal motives for the establishment of such a large collection of English books, have been preserved. Therefore, it is only possible to speculate that he could have been influenced by a general increase of interest in the British political system, history, science, culture, and imperial achievements in the German countries.³⁹

The Acquisition of Zois's English Editions and Works of English-Speaking Authors

Large parts of Zois’s personal archives, including most of his correspondence dating from i778 to i793 have been lost, but the remaining letters and documents, which are kept in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, the National and University Library, the National Museum of Slovenia, and the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, still offer plenty of information about Zois’s book collecting and purchasing practices.⁴⁰

Among his regular local booksellers, Zois particularly appreciated Wilhelm Henrik Korn (1754–1834), who came to Ljubljana in 1782 and was active as a publisher and bookseller into the 1830s. Korn’s sales catalogues from 1782–97 show that he offered a variety of contemporary scientific works and works from the various fields of applied sciences, as well as a considerable number of local authors’ works.⁴¹ He also offered a wide range of classical authors, contemporary philosophical, and literary works, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, historical studies, text-books, children’s books, musical prints, dramas, and also many travel and exploration accounts in German, Italian and French, some of which are now also in the Zois collection. Most of Korn’s books came from German, Austrian, and Swiss publishers and printers. He was an exclusive seller for some of the Vienna editions and began to offer the latest French editions after 1788.⁴² The preserved bills in the National Museum of Slovenia show that he sold at least fifty books to Zois between 1787 and 1792. In 1821, he also assessed the value of Zois’s library before it was sold to the Ljubljana Lyceum.⁴³

Korn’s catalogues only list a few books in English, most of them dictionaries. This is not surprising, as the market for works in English was extremely limited in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Carniola. With ever improving communications and transportation in the second half of the eighteenth century, it would become possible for Korn to organize some foreign intermediaries to provide him with sales catalogues or individual English editions upon demand or through some kind of a subscription. He offered the possibility of arranging orders with the foreign publishers and booksellers in his 1783 catalogue.⁴⁴ Many of Zois’s English editions printed and published in the British Isles come from Millar’s, Strahan’s and Cadell’s printing presses and bookstores in London and Edin- burgh; these would have been an obvious choice since they were among the most prominent publishers and booksellers of English, Scottish and other contemporary English-speaking authors of the time. Even though the remaining documents of Korn’s business or Zois’s personal archives do not prove any such agreements or the existence of the sales catalogues in question in Ljubljana, Korn was well connected with the European book-trade business, and the possibility of his being Zois’s intermediate for at least some of his English editions does not seem so far-fetched. A couple of notes in the records of Zois personal expenses suggest that he could have provided him with some books from Paris and London in 1805.⁴⁵

Among Zois’s other prominent and well-connected booksellers in Vienna were Christian Friedrich Wappler (1741–1807) and his partner Karl Friede- rich Beck, who also sometimes acted as his intermediaries for purchases outside the German-speaking territories. Some of Zois’s contracts with Wappler as well as book orders and bills have been preserved and are now kept at the National Museum of Slovenia and The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The orders and bills from Wappler and Beck contain several works by authors from the British Isles in Latin or in German, French and Italian translation, some of which were, like Denis’s German translation of The Poems of Ossian from 1784, published by Wappler himself.

The National Museum of Slovenia keeps an undated register of Zois’s expenses for books, which was most probably put together around i783.⁴⁶ It lists books and periodicals from Genoa, Paris, Turin, Florence, Naples, Venice, Milan, Amsterdam, and other European cities, which seem to have been ordered from Yves Gravier’s bookshop in Paris and contains the 1780 Paris edition of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey. There is also a letter from 6 July 1810, in which Kopitar, who had an important role as Zois’s book supplier after he had moved to Vienna in i808, informs Zois about some books that have recently appeared in the Vienna book market. Listed among them are the last three volumes of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Kopitar goes on to remark that it would perhaps be time for Korn to get hold of them.⁴⁷ All six volumes of the 1789 Strahan and Cadell reprint appear in Zois’s catalogue, but presently the National and University Library keeps the first three volumes of the 1789 reprint and the last three volumes of the 1788 reprint.⁴⁸

Due to the fact that no eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century sales catalogues of English or other booksellers offering a larger number of English editions have been preserved, apart from a few inbound advertisements in Zois’s books, some less formal acquisition methods must also be taken into consideration. There is the already mentioned Schreibers’s study of the Proteus, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, which was communicated through Joseph Banks, who was also a personal acquaintance of Zois’s correspondent Baron Nicolaus Vay de Vaya from Vienna.⁴⁹ Also there are the records of Admiral John Duckworth’s and Humphry Davy’s visits to Zois’s Ljubljana palace. Though the preserved letters and documents do not prove this, all of these men could have given books to Zois at some point.

An interesting document, attesting to Zois’s contacts in the British Isles, is kept in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia. A notebook containing a register of people whom Zois was supplying with different samples of minerals during the 1780s and the 1790s meticulously lists the dispatched minerals under the names of individual recipients. In 1791, there is an entry listing the samples, which Zois sent to ‘Dr. John Lettsome at Lambrouke court, London, by the order of Mr John Archer.⁵⁰ This suggests that he had either had prior contacts with the English physician, natural scientist, philanthropist and abolitionist John Coakley Lettsome (1744–1815), or with (the Dublin bookseller?) John Archer, who seems to have made the order in Lettsome’s name.⁵¹

More importantly, there were two Zois connections in London that seem to have supplied him with the majority of his books published and printed in the British Isles. Among the correspondence and the documents kept in the National Museum of Slovenia are nine letters, dated between 1794 and 1796, which were sent to Zois by an Austrian consul and merchant in London named Antonio Songa and his brother Bartolomeo.⁵² The name Songa first appears among Zois’s suppliers of (unspecified) English books in the records of his personal expenses from 1784, which are kept in the National Archives of the Republic of Slovenia.⁵³

The preserved letters from Songa from the 1790s begin with an overview and description of the books, maps, engravings, and other material, such as minerals and instruments, he is sending (Fig. 5). Five letters also contain lists of items, which Zois seems to have previously ordered for himself, as well as for acquaintances, such as the previously mentioned Baron Nicolaus Vay de Vaya, or Count Christian von Haugwitz. Three vouchers for five crates (of unknown content) shipped from London to Venice and Trieste in 1794 have also been preserved (Fig. 6).⁵⁴ The letters from Songa to Zois from 1795 and 1797 suggest that the route for the shipments had changed from 1794 onwards. Instead of their being delivered directly to one of the two closest Adriatic ports, the crates were first shipped to the Brentano Bovara and Urbieta forwarding agents in Hamburg and then to Zois’s correspondent and acquaintance Joseph Paul von Cobres from Augsburg, who took care of the final transportation to Ljubljana.⁵⁵ In Cobres’s letters to Zois, dated from 1795 to 1797, there are constant mentions of the crates arriving from the Brentano Bovara and Urbieta Company as well as of the subsequent transportation routes to Ljubljana (mainly through Salzburg), and the delivery expenses.⁵⁶

There is no way of knowing what the contents of Zois’s requests for books and other items from London were, since the only copy of his letters to Songa from 1794, which was once kept at the National Museum of Slovenia, is now missing.⁵⁷ The five lists of books dispatched from London in the 1790s include eighty-three editions, published from 1734 to 1796, which Zois ordered for himself.⁵⁸ Many more of Songa’s shipments to Zois dating from 1794 onwards must have existed, as references to the crates coming from London through Hamburg in Cobres’s letters dated up to 1797 are more numerous than Songa’s letters to Zois.

Zois's Collection of English Editions and Works by English-Speaking Authors: An Overview

The catalogue of Zois’s library, which was made before the collection was sold to the Lyceum Library, is divided into seven main parts, which are generally, but not always consistently arranged according to languages and/or subjects. The first few pages contain classical literary, philosophical and historical works, including 110 volumes of the Bipontine collection of classics, as well as some individual editions of Greek and Roman authors, works on arts, philosophy, history and the natural sciences in Latin.⁵⁹ The literary part of the collection ends quite soon, and the natural and the applied sciences, in particular geology, mineralogy, botany, and zoology, begin to prevail. Works in Latin are followed by works of similar content and in similar subject proportions in Italian and in French.⁶⁰ This is followed by a section of books in English, comprising travel and exploration accounts, atlases, maps, geographical studies, treatises on the natural and applied sciences, historical works, manuals, journals and magazines and other works.⁶¹ Next comes the largest section of the catalogue, with books in German, where works on the natural and applied sciences, particularly those on geology and mineralogy, are predominant.⁶² The following section comprises (mostly) Slavic history and philology, as well as historical and contemporary works in Slovenian and in different Slavic languages, including a few manuscripts.⁶³ At the end of the catalogue’s main part, there are works in Latin and German by some noteworthy authors from contemporary Slovenian territories, followed by miscellanea in various languages.⁶⁴ The supplement to the main part of the catalogue comprises miscellaneous works in Latin, Italian, German, English, French, Slovenian and other lan- guages.⁶⁵ The majority of the books presented and analysed in this chapter appear on pp. 35–46, and pp. 146–149, while the rest are scattered throughout the catalogue.⁶⁶

Zois’s catalogue comprises 233 books, periodicals and other prints in English.⁶⁷ They include works by authors from the British Isles, the British colonies, and America, as well as works by some authors from continental Europe which were originally published in English.⁶⁸ There are also fifty- nine translations of English originals into German, French and Italian, and eight works by English-speaking authors, which were written in Italian and Latin or predominately in Latin. The collection includes the 1751 edition of Altieri’s Italian—English and English—Italian dictionary, the 1761 edition of Bailey’s English-German and German—English dictionary, and George Hicke’s Linguarum veterum septentrionalium thesaurus grammatico- criticus et archaeologicus from 1705.⁶⁹

Thomas Riley Blankley’s A Naval Expositor from 1750, three volumes of Samuel Butler’s Hudibras from 1757, and the two tables published in 1815 and 1816 by W. Cary on the Strand, which appear in the catalogue under the (provisional?) title Exchanges, Bullion, Monies, Coins, Weights & Measures by Humphry Davy, are no longer part of the National and University Library’s holdings.⁷⁰ Three books—the Report of the Committee of the Board of Agriculture Concening the Culure and Use of Potatoes from 1795, Robert Baillie’s Operis historici et chronologici libri duo from 1663, and John Mills’s A Treatise on Cattle from 1776—appear on the lists of Zois’s donations to the Lyceum Library from 1808 and 1815.⁷¹

The subject-matter of Zois’s collection of English editions and works by English-speaking authors generally correspond with his scientific interests and the rest of his book collection. It comprises a large number of books, as well as some periodicals from the natural sciences, such as botany, zoology, geology, physics, chemistry, general treatises in natural history, and the applied sciences, such as mining, agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, economy, manufacture, and trade.⁷² He also kept a handful of works on British, American, and colonial history, politics and trade, and the American Civil War in English and in French, such as Bryan Edwards’s The History, Civil and Commercial of the British Colonies in the West Indies from 1794, Raynals’s Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes (Geneva, 1780), the first volume of The History of the Civil War in America from 1780, the 1776 French translation of Goldsmith’s An Abridgment of the History of England,⁷³ Chavanette^,s, Raynal^,s and François^,s histories of England, as well as Lolme^,s Constitution de l'Angleterre (Amsterdam, 1778).

Some books, like the German editions of Samuel Taylor’s stenographical manual from 1801, and John Weskett’s A Complete Digest of the Theory Laws and Practice of Insurance from 1772,⁷⁴ as well as some reference works, manuals and magazines on sports, hunting, gardening, manufacture, agriculture and animal husbandry are of a more practical nature, and correspond with Zois’s interests as an aristocrat, a businessman, and a landowner.⁷⁵ Zois’s collection shows that he was interested in different political and economic theories of the time and he also kept a French edition of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations from 1781.⁷⁶

Despite being relevant to Zois’s primary scientific interests in many ways, one part of the collection in particular stands out. It consists of more than seventy individual exploration accounts, journals, and itineraries by explorers and travellers from the British Isles, America, and the colonies (in English and in German or in French translations) as well as some atlases, maps, navigational, and seamanship manuals.⁷⁷ The exploration accounts include all the major missions in the Pacific, Asia, Africa, and America, which is hardly surprising, as the British were at the forefront of late eighteenth-century geographical exploration and navigation, as well as colonization and the development of global industry and trade. The travel and exploration accounts, reports and diaries—which made for extremely popular reading at the time—are also full of geological, zoological, botanical, anthropological, ethnographical, climatological, economical and other details and observations, as well as of illustrations and supplements depicting the landscapes, the peoples, the geological phenomena, the monuments, and the flora and fauna of distant foreign lands and various European regions.⁷⁸ These contents were certainly very relevant and appealing to a natural scientist like Zois, as well as to individual members of his salon, men such as Valentin Vodnik, who taught geography at the Ljubljana Lyceum.

On the other hand, the large quantity of these works in English, as well as in other languages, which make up more than ten per cent of his library, might also point to a less happy side of Zois’s pronounced interest in this particular genre. Wheelchair-bound and limited in movement, this man, who would probably have gladly taken part in different field explorations, might find at least some compensation in these books. There were some travel and exploration books (such as guidebooks, grand-tour itineraries, travel diaries, multi-volume collections of travel accounts or individual voyage accounts) in the Lyceum Library, the Carniolan Agrarian Society’s library and in other private collections of the time, but no systematic interest in this type of literature is evident there. This aspect makes Zois’s travel literature collection unique and certainly puts him among the most systematic collectors of travel and exploration accounts, including those that were written by the captains of the Royal Navy and by other prominent British explorers, naturalists and merchants.

Zois’s affinity with belles-lettres and philosophy in all languages seems almost entirely random, and the classical and contemporary literary, historical and philosophical works by English-speaking authors or in English in his collection are also quite scarce. He kept Jonathan Swift’s collected works in English from 1768, Alexander Pope’s and Edward Young’s collected works in French from 1763 and 1772, the first edition of Sarah Fielding’s The Adventures of David Simple, and Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy from 1780.⁷⁹ He had a German translation of The Poems of Ossian published in Vienna in 1785.⁸⁰ He also had Francis Bacon’s collected works from 1665, as well as such individual works as William Enfield’s The History of Philosophy from 1791, and Robert Anthony Bromley’s A Philosophical and Critical History of the Fine Arts, Fainting, Sculpture, and Architecture from 1793.⁸¹

The earliest preserved census of Zois’s collection, which was undertaken in the early 1780s comprises over fifty scientific, historical, literary, religious, and philosophical works in French, Latin, Italian, Slovenian, other Slavic languages, and English, which do not appear in the catalogue of the books sold to the Lyceum Library in 1823.⁸² Out of the ninety-one English editions published in the 1770s or earlier, which appear in the earliest census, seventy-five are also listed in the 1820s catalogue. Those that are missing would probably have been among the books that Zois’s nephew and heir Karl would have selected and kept for himself before selling the collection. They include the first German translation of Shakespeare’s plays by Christoph Martin Wieland, the 1716 London edition of The Works of Ben Johnson, three works by Henry Fielding, some treatises and manuals on natural science, agriculture, gardening, and animal husbandry, such as Young’s Essays on the Management of Hogs, and the Culture of Coleseed, Including Experiments from 1770, Lettsome’s The Naturalist's and Traveller's Companion from 1774, as well as four volumes of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, published from 1778 to 1782.⁸³ There could have been even more English books in Zois’s collection in the 1800s and the 1810s, as some older sources also mention another catalogue of Zois’s library from 1803 or 1804—one which was supposedly made by Jernej Kopitar and contained even more contemporary literary, scientific and philosophical works in different languages.⁸⁴ This catalogue, which could have offered valuable information about the development of Zois’s library, as well as the extent of his collection of English books in the first decade of the nineteenth century, has been missing since at least the 1930s.

Many of the works by English-speaking authors from Zois’s collection were also available in German or French translation. Instead, he seems to have preferred to buy them in the original language and have them shipped to Ljubljana directly from London. Several works from Zois’s collection appear in both the English original and in translation. Most of these are travel and exploration accounts, translated into German and published between 1754 and 1809 in the Magazin von merkwürdigen neuen Reisebeschreibungen (Berlin, 1790-1809), and in the Sammlung neuer und merkwürdiger Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande (Göttingen, 1754–64).⁸⁵ There are also a few individual works, for example, an account of James Cook’s South Pacific voyages in 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775, which Zois had in the first English edition from 1777, as well as in the first French edition from I778.⁸⁶ He also had William Coxe’s Account of the Russian Discoveries between Asia and America in the first English edition from 1780, and in the first German edition from 1783.⁸⁷ He had the first and second editions of Capper’s Observations on the Passage to India, through Egypt, published in London in I783 and I785, which could be an unintentional double purchase, or an indication that he could have acquired the two editions through two different channels—perhaps he bought the first one and received the second one as a gift.⁸⁸ Zois also kept some English translations of works, which were originally written and published in other languages, such as Plesceev’s Survey of the Russian Empire from 1792, and Rousseau^,s Letters on the Elements of Botany, Addressed to a Lady from 1785.⁸⁹

An overview of publication dates of the English books, which Antonio Songa sent to Zois during the 1790s shows that over ninety per cent are first editions. The high percentage suggests that Zois was well acquainted with what was available on the book market or that he explicitly asked Antonio Songa to provide him with the first or the latest editions of the works that fitted his interests. Such would accord with Zois’s general preference for ordering and buying the most current editions. The majority of his books in other languages are also first, second or third editions, published between the 1770s and the 1810s. It is very possible that Zois bought the French and the German translations of English editions prior to his purchases of the originals. The publication dates also reveal that the acquisitions of English books ceased almost entirely after 1797. This could have been a consequence of Zois’s financial problems or an indication that it became increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to organize such purchases and transports during the French revolutionary wars and the Napoleonic wars.

The lists in Antonio Songa’s letters from 1794 onwards suggest that approximately one third of Zois’s English books and periodicals were bought between 1794 and 1797. A considerable number of them seems to have been shipped to Zois by Songa already in the 1780s.⁹⁰ Ninety-one English books, which are listed in the 1780s census of the library, were probably ordered or bought earlier, perhaps even during one of Zois’s European travels during the 1770s. The English dictionaries must have been acquired well before. Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey was ordered from Paris in the early 1780s, and the 1789 reprint of the last three volumes of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire must have been ordered from Vienna through Wilhelm Henrik Korn in the 1810s.⁹¹ The two missing tables from 1815 and 1816 could have been a gift from Humphry Davy during his visit to Ljubljana.⁹² It is also very possible that Zois received some of the English books as gifts from his other visitors or foreign correspondents.

C onclusion

Zois’s moderately comprehensive yet heterogeneous library places him among the best-informed readers of the Enlightenment, and shows that he continuously strove to keep up with the latest developments, particularly in the fields of natural and applied sciences. There is no way of knowing whether Zois actually read all of the books he purchased, though the occasional notes in pencil which can also be found in some of his English editions suggest that he was at least perusing them for information regarding various plants, animals, geological phenomena, and technological innovations. Zois’s personal affinities (e.g. his engagement in the cultural and scientific advances of the period), the philosophical, and scientific trends and mindsets of the Enlightenment as well as his chronic illness, all seem to have partly manifested themselves in the subject matter of his collection. His numerous local and European contacts also played an important part in the up-to-date nature and the heterogeneity of his library.

Zois’s unique collection of English editions and works by Englishspeaking authors, which was by far the largest and the most contemporary in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Carniola, was acquired in several different ways and through different channels. Most of the books seem to have been shipped to Zois from London by Antonio (and Bartolomeo) Songa between 1784 and 1797. Individual works and most of the translations were purchased from his other regular or occasional booksellers. Some of the books might also have been gifts from Zois’s correspondents, acquaintances and visitors (including those from the British Isles). This short overview only scratches the surface of Zois’s involvement in the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Republic of Letters and the scientific advances of the period. It would certainly be interesting to examine the remaining correspondence of his European and British contacts in order to fill the gaps and account for the more personal motives of his purchases, other acquisition channels for his English books, as well as the development of his book collecting and reading interests over time.

Footnotes