Current Exhibitions

Sunday, 8 September, to Sunday, 3 November 2024
Friedenstein Palace, Hall of Mirrors

Curator: Dr. Feras Krimsti

Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10 am to 5 pm, and on the public holidays 20 September, 3 October and 31 October. The exhibition will be closed from 25 to 27 September.

At the end of the 16th century, a student wrote down Ottoman words in his exercise book. He would later become an influential Lutheran theologian. Translations of pious literature which an Ethiopian priest co-authored with the founder of Ethiopian studies bear witness to the priest’s visit to Gotha in 1652. In the 17th century, a numismatist wrote a poem of praise in Arabic and Latin to the Duke of Gotha in the hope of securing a position at the Ducal Library. In the first decade of the 19th century, a natural scholar sent Arabic, Persian and Ottoman manuscripts to the library in Gotha while travelling through the Ottoman Empire and Arabia. He also collected cultural artefacts in the Ottoman Empire, such as unique historical fabric samples, and he sent them to Gotha.

These and many other traces of encounters with the Orient have been preserved in Gotha. They point to the work of scholars who were drawn to the city from the 16th to the 19th century. Among the scholars were Protestant theologians, natural scholars of the Enlightenment, Orientalists who adopted historical-critical methods, Romantic poets, and cartographers. The exhibition “The Orient in Gotha” takes a closer look at these scholars and the traces they left behind. Each of them, in their own way, shaped the view of the culture, history, literature and geography of the Ottoman Empire, the Arabian Peninsula, Ethiopia and other areas that were seen as part of the Orient. Four hundred years of Oriental studies in Gotha bear witness to the changes in scholarly research, and they shed light on the intellectual culture of the city of Gotha.

The Gotha Research Library would like to thank the Friedenstein Foundation Gotha for the items on loan. 

Exhibition flyer

Catalogue
A catalogue, available in bookshops and at the Gotha Research Library, covers the exhibition:
Feras Krimsti (ed.), The Orient in Gotha. Gotha 2024.

The events are organised with the kind support of the Friends of the Gotha Research Library.