ABSTRACT
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was in sole charge of the library, and, at the time of his death, he had turned it into one of the largest ducal libraries in Germany, containing some 130,000 volumes. The library was held in high esteem as both a status symbol for the duchy and as a temple to art and science. During her reign, Duchess Anna Amalia turned Weimar's Grune Schloss into a library for the display of the ducal collections of books, manuscripts, busts, paintings, drawings and globes. With criticism growing in Germany about the absence of an appropriate grave for Schiller, the Mayor of Weimar, after the poet's death, decided to have Friedrich Schiller's skull exhumed and reburied in a special grave. When Goethe arrived in 1775, Weimar had only 6000 inhabitants. Under these circumstances, the material conditions in Weimar, and Goethe's lifestyle in particular, needed to be interpreted through different eyes.
