Johannes a Lasco Library, Research library and museum in Emden, Germany
The Johannes a Lasco Library is a research library and museum in Emden, housed inside the restored shell of the city's Great Church. It holds around 130,000 volumes along with manuscripts and documents focused on Reformed theology and early modern religious history.
The Great Church of Emden was built in the 15th century and largely destroyed in an air raid in 1943. After three years of reconstruction, the Johannes a Lasco Library opened in its ruins in 1995. The library traces its origins to the archives and book collection of Emden's Reformed congregation, which dates from 1559 and began as the private library of church elder Gerhard tom Camp.
The library is named after Johannes a Lasco, the Polish reformer who worked in Emden between 1540 and 1555 and left his book collection to the city's Reformed community. Its holdings include books from the libraries of Erasmus of Rotterdam, a Lasco himself, Albert Ritzaeus Hardenberg and Petrus Medmann. Since 2001 an image archive has been built up documenting Emden before the Second World War.
The building is wheelchair accessible, and part of the collection can be consulted through the online portal Reformed Online, which makes it easy to prepare a visit in advance. Those interested in the rarest items should check beforehand which materials are available for in-person viewing.
The merchant Johann Philipp Janssen donated his collection of around 2,000 titles to the library in 1993, including 20 incunabula and several valuable 16th-century prints. Per his instruction, it is kept in its own dedicated room. The library also holds books from the personal libraries of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Johannes a Lasco, Albert Ritzaeus Hardenberg and Petrus Medmann.
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