Crucial to this body of literature are the works that the universal scholar Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz read and commented on. Leibniz was latterly the librarian at Wolfenbüttel for a period of 25 years, from 1691–1716.

In 2001, work commenced on an edition of his writings about the natural sciences, medicine and technology (Series 8 of the Akademie edition, supervised by Prof. Eberhard Knobloch). Digitised versions of the manuscripts as well as the edited texts have been made available online. In the online edition of the manuscripts, the vast majority of which are unknown, there are links to the writings cited by Leibniz, i.e. links to entire works or to individual chapters or pages. In the first phase of the project, works that Leibniz regarded as important were completely digitised and permanently linked to the online edition. The digitised works are accessible to everyone as part of the Wolfenbütteler Digitale Bibliothek (Wolfenbüttel Digital Library, WDB). The texts and images that they contain – for most of the works include numerous illustrations – and which are so central to an understanding of early modern scientific culture have thus now been catalogued in depth and set in their thematic context.

Funding: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG)
Project participant: Andrea Opitz (contact)