Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (Fruitful or Carpogenic Society)
Project of the Saxon Academy of Sciences (Leipzig) in Cooperation with the Duke August Library (Wolfenbüttel)
Formerly classified as an association dedicated mainly to the purification of the German language, this society has gradually emerged as a much more important player in 17th century German intellectual life than hitherto thought. With its 890 members both the first and largest academy of German arts and letters (1617-1680), the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft succeeded in rallying many princes, officials, poets, scholars, and influential noblemen to its cause of enhancing national culture through literature, conversation, philology, and religious, administrative as well as scientific writing. In an age of endless military and confessional strife, the Society promoted peace and national unity by recruiting members from different ranks and opposing parties (among them many foreigners), by cultivating the arts of translation and correspondence, and by developing the vernacular into a refined tool of understanding.
Since 1988 the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel has been the location of an interdisciplinary project designed to study the letters, poems, and other documents of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft, among them selected books, illustrations, statutes, lists, plans, and other texts which shed light on a variety of disciplines as well as the political and intellectual relations throughout Germany and Europe. With support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, seven volumes of a critical edition with detailed commentaries were researched and published. Since 2001 funding for the project of editing the letters and small supplements of Die deutsche Akademie des 17. Jahrhunderts has been continued by the Sächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig.
Funded by: Akademienprogramm (Programme of the German Union of Academies)
Project Director: Prof. Dr. Klaus Conermann
Researcher: Dr. Gabriele Ball, Dr. Andreas Herz, Nico Dorn, Anne Dickel
Tel. +49(0)5331/808-245, -276, -241, Fax - 277