The members of the rich German Fugger family of merchants were passionate book collectors. Not only Johann Jakob Fugger and Ulrich Fugger, but also Philipp Eduard Fugger owned important book collections. Hard-pressed for money, the latter’s grandson Albert decided to sell the collection, which comprised as many as 15,000 volumes.
It contained not only a large number of printed books and precious manuscripts, but also music autographs and twenty-seven volumes of the famous "Fugger Newspapers". They actually consisted of handwritten news items compiled by the brothers Octavian Secundus (1549–1600) and Philipp Eduard Fugger (1546–1618) for internal use.
These newspapers contained topical reports from places throughout Europe, as well as from the Americas, North Africa, and Asia. In a FWF-funded research project, these fascinating » sources have been analysed in detail. In 1655, the library’s prefect Matthäus Mauchter (1650–1663) travelled to Augsburg to buy Philipp Eduard Fugger’s library for the imperial library for 15,000 guilders.