Publisher's Synopsis
Due to the difficult situation in the years after the First World War, many Austrian monasteries got into economic difficulties, some of which threatened their very existence. The sale of cultural property, including medieval manuscripts and incunabula, seemed a suitable means of overcoming these problems. Valuable manuscripts such as the Admont Giant Bible or the Antiphonary of St. Peter changed hands; quite a few books, such as the Gutenberg Bible from St. Paul im Lavanttal, left Austria forever. For the first time, the articles in this volume examine these processes, which have been suppressed for a long time, in a systematic and source-based manner - taking into account the actions of all those involved, the monasteries themselves as well as the Federal Monuments Office, the Austrian National Library, church authorities and, last but not least, the dealers and collectors.
