Richard de Bury

Richard de Bury (actually Richard Aungerville ) (* January 24, 1287 in Bury St. Edmund's in Suffolk, † April 14, 1345 in Durham ) was Bishop of Durham from 1333 to 1345. De Bury was known as a collector of books.

He was after his university education at Oxford royal diplomat and Lord Chancellor under Edward III. He probably met Petrarch at Avignon in 1333 and was influenced by literary him.

Philobiblon

In his book Philobiblon, which he wrote in 1344, he praises in an ornate, baroque Latin full of enthusiasm and imagination to the value of books and justify why they need to be loved. He complains about their disrespect and destructive wars. He describes his search, his discoveries, the prices of books, his studies, his idea of ​​a reading culture and illustrates how a library should be organized. He writes, among other things, that " books of the real wealth of the world, a divine gift, which you can never get enough, indispensable for those who are in search of truth, knowledge and wisdom." In books one would find the dead as if they were still alive. His great love of books he immortalized as follows:

Works

• Philobiblon
• Liber Epistolaris ( Ed. by Noel Denholm -Young, Oxford, 1950)
• Philobiblon, seu De amore librorum. Printer Augustine, De fide ( = Johann solidi? ), Cologne 1473rd ( digitized )