French books of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, or “bibliothèque de cabinet” of Regent Anna Leopoldovna?
Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: In 1745, some six hundred volumes of French books were transferred from the Summer Palace, in St. Petersburg, to the Academy of Sciences, and in 1750 returned to the court. Here, we show that three inventories of these books have been preserved to this day, two of which contain an indication that they had belonged to Anna Leopoldovna (in 1740-41, regent during the reign of her underage son, Emperor Ioann Antonovich), and were later donated by Empress Elizabeth Petrovna to Ivan Ivanovitch Shuvalov. Thus, the books described in these catalogs are not the library of Elizabeth Petrovna, as was previously assumed, but that of Anna Leopoldovna.
Author: Natalia Speranskaya
Institution: National Library of Russia
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3044279975