Persian Manuscripts

A collection of 13 Persian manuscipts is held at University library “Svetozar Markovic” in Belgrade.

History of the Persian collection

The first book in the Persian language to come to the Munich court library was a manuscript with the collection of poems (Diwan) of the poet Kamâl Ḫuǧandī († 1400), who originally came from Central Asia (Cod.pers. 84). The book came from the library of the diplomat and scholar Johann Albrecht Widmannstetter (1506 – 1557), whose book collection formed the foundation of the Munich court library. During the subsequent 250 years, manuscripts from Iran (the official name of this country since 1935) in the Persian language came to the ducal library only in small numbers and infrequently. Up to the beginning of the 19th century, twelve Persian manuscripts had been accumulated. This small collection attracted the interest of the Indologist Othmar Frank (1770 – 1840), and he published a catalogue in 1814, in which he described these twelve Persian manuscripts in detail, translating them partially and presenting them to the expert world in original text extracts.

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