Biography and Hospinian collection
Leonhard Hospinian was born around 1505 as the seventh son of the Untervogt Hans Wirth in Stammheim (Canton of Zurich). His father was executed in 1524 for being a Protestant. Hospinian studied theology in Vienna (1520), Zurich (1521), Freiburg i.Br. (1522) and then in Wittenberg, where he completed his studies in 1524. In Zurich he was one of Zwingli's boarders and accompanied him in 1528 at the Berne disputation. Between 1534 and 1536 Hospinian taught Latin in Kempten and Stein am Rhein, then joined a professor of Latin in Basel in 1537. Soon he resumed teaching Latin in the Alsace region and Brugg. In 1542 Hospinian obtained the Basel citizenship and bought into the guild of Goldener Schlüssel.
After the death of his first wife Hospinian married the wealthy widow of a book printer, Anna Meyer, in 1541. She owned a small book collection. This marriage improved the his financial situation and in 1537 Bonifacius Amerbach helped him to get an Erasmus scholarship. Hospinian died in 1564. He had bequeathed his library to his son-in-law, Johannes Fädminger, who was dean and pastor at the Münster. After his death in 1586, Johannes Fädminger bequeathed the "Bibliothek auf der Schule" collection to what is now the University Library Bern.
The Hospinian collection comprises 243 volumes, including a number of collective volumes, amounting to 435 volumes on the whole. With just one exception in an early owner's mark, Hospinian always used the Latin form of his name. The oldest owner's mark originates from 1517 and can be found in a book on law by Sebastian Brant.
376 editions are Latin, others are in Greek, Italian or Hebrew. Only three works are in German. Around one third of the Hospinian collection was printed in Basel. The majority of the bindings also originate from workshops in Basel - Hospinian often bought his editions unbound and had them bound after his marriage to wealthy Anna Meyer in 1541. Most of the bindings are of a soft pigskin, often embellished with stamps, scrolls and line pallets in blind embossing, rarely in gold print.
As to contents the collection represents the academic knowledge of its time: Hospinian's theological interest inspired by humanism is evident throughout a number of Bible editions, translations and commentaries. The theological literature is complemented by the great Church Fathers and polemic pamphlets. The range of subjects in the collection includes philosophy, history, rhetoric, philology and the natural sciences in the fields of botany and medicine.