Dr. Heinrich D. Holland, professor emeritus in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department of Harvard University and more recently associated with Penn as a visiting scholar and professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science, has given the University of Pennsylvania Libraries an important copy of the German edition of the Augsburg Confession, published in Wittenberg by Georg Rhau (or Rhaw) in 1531. This copy, bound in vellum, contains copious underlining and annotations by an early reader of this controversial work. Dr. Holland, who has made major contributions to the understanding of the earth's geochemistry, has also had a longstanding interest in collecting rare books in areas of significance to him.

The Confession consists of 28 articles laying out the basic tenets of Lutheran theology. This edition includes Philipp Melanchthon's Apologia, a detailed refutation of Catholic counterarguments to the Confession, seven times longer than the work it defends. This generous gift joins a number of early works by Luther and Melanchthon already in the rare book collection that have recently been made accessible online as part of a major cataloging project supported by a CLIR (Council for Library and Information Resources) Hidden Collections grant. Among these is a collection of six brief documents from 1531 concerned with the Diet of Augsburg (1530), compiled by Luther's opponent Johan Cochlaeus. The documents include an excerpt from an imperial address; a letter by Martin Luther to Johann, Elector of Saxony; an explanation of Luther's letter; a plea by Cochlaeus for Christian unity; a letter by Philipp Melanchthon about the character of Emperor Charles V; and a summary of the Emperor's response to the Lutheran publication of the Augsburg Confession.

This copy of the Confession will certainly receive much attention from students and scholars of history and theology as well as the history of books, who will be interested in this work not only as a primary source but also as a wonderful example of contemporary reader response to its ideas.

View the cataloging record for this gift.

Learn more about the CLIR grant.

For more information:
Lynne Farrington, Curator of Printed Books