PETER SJÖKVIST

Supported by the legal ideas of Hugo Grotius, the Swedish armies exploited opportunities to seize books as spoils of war from conquered enemies to an unparalleled degree in the seventeenth century. They took books from countries such as today's Latvia, Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic and Denmark, distributing the goods to recently founded institutions and private manors in their native country. In Looted Libraries, Looted Books - The Swedish Case, Peter Sj kvist gives a summarizing overview of these plunders: from which regions and owners full libraries or selected books were taken during the conflicts, where they subsequently tended to end up when arriving in Sweden, and how they have been received and curated over the years. It is argued that it can be questioned whether large portions of the spoils have served any proper user needs in their new contexts.

This volume collects eleven studies that investigate different aspects of the teaching and learning of Greek in early modern northern Europe (c. 1500–1750), from France in the west to Lithuania in the east. They give important insights that advance our understanding of the homogeneity despite diversity in the complex developments of classical reception, the study of Greek, its significance, and the practice of Greek in the various religious, cultural, and socio-political environments of the complicated spatio-temporal and geopolitical realities of Europe.