Universitätsbibliothek
Universitätsbibliothek stands in Heidelberg as the central scientific library of Heidelberg University. Its main building combines Renaissance forms inspired by Heidelberg Castle with Art Nouveau details. Josef Durm designed the building, constructed between 1901 and 1905.
The library system reaches back to the university’s foundation in 1386 and includes about 83 decentralised libraries. Around 6.2 million media items cover books, journals, microfilms, videos, databases, and electronic publications. Special collections focus on the Palatinate and Baden, Egyptology, archaeology, art history, and South Asian studies. An underground archive holds about two million books, while the main building provides roughly 1,100 reading and workspaces. Digital projects make historical manuscripts available online, including the Bibliotheca Palatina collection.
The Codex Manesse remains a remarkable highlight: nearly 6,000 stanzas by 140 poets fill this early fourteenth-century manuscript. Miniatures show the poets in vivid portraits, giving the poetry collection a distinctly human face. The façade adds Prometheus and a veiled Virgin near the entrance, with Pallas Athene above the central gable.
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Image: Rainer Ebert from Heidelberg, GermanyCC BY-SA 2.0 
Image: Immanuel GielPublic domain 
Image: Immanuel GielPublic domain 
Image: Immanuel GielPublic domain 
Image: Master of the Codex ManessePublic domain
Take this page with you
The myTuur app is free, and once you are standing at a spot its story starts by itself.
Spots like this one are the stops myTuur strings into tours through Heidelberg. In the app, each story begins where you stand: walk up to a spot and it starts, read it on screen or listen as you go, then follow the route to the next one.
What is myTuur?
myTuur is a free city-guide app. Its tours are built from spots, and each spot carries a story that starts when you get there, to read or to listen to as you like.