Collection

Books of friendship in the collections of Poznań University Library

The fashion for assembling Alba Amicorum (Books of Friendship, from German: das Stammbuch) started as early as the 16th century. They were small memorandum books in which their owners collected entries and signatures of friends, colleagues, professors or people met during their student. Many a time, such pro memoria entries found in academic alba amicorum were accompanied with quotations from well-known literary works, Greek and Latin maxims, and were sometimes also embellished with illustrations. The Album Amicorum appears to have started in university communities and thus become a standard element of student culture. From the 18th century onwards, books of friendship became fashionable with the elites – autograph albums became commonly associated with literary and intellectual salons - hence the abundance of the then books of friendship with autographs of well-known artists, writers, scientists and politicians. The idea of the ”book of friendship” was developed in Polish lands in the latter half of the 18th century. Alternative designations in Polish included: trwalnik, imionnik or pamiętnik.

The Manuscript Collection of Poznań University Library holds a rich collection of books of friendship (over 100) spanning four centuries, i.e. from the 17th to the 20th century.