works, 486 manuscripts and 184 sets of archives, the library having suffered neither from the Thirty Years' War nor from other depredations; the records of the monastery do not, however, allow for a detailed analysis of the acquisition policy. On the other hand, until 1688, the monastery had its books bound externally. From the latter date onwards, the monks themselves carried out the binding, which explains the purchase of hides and skins. The works in the library bear a mark of ownership: either a handwritten inscription on the title page or a marking on the binding, with a call number. The call number indicated a capital letter which specified the theme, then a column number and a row number. The Hortus deliciarum ("garden of delights") is by far the most famous item in the library. It is a codex, created by Herrad of Landsberg for the religious instruction of her nuns at Mont Saint-Odile Abbey, and dating from the 11th century; it was considered the most valuable manuscript preserved in Alsace. It consisted of 342 folios with 336 thumbnails of almost 7,000 persons, presenting a wide range of subjects, such as theology, philosophy, history, astronomy, physics, geography and mythology. The text, for its part, was a Christian anthology divided into four sections: Old and New Testaments, religious life and salvation. Miraculously, it was spared from the fire that struck Mont Saint-Odile in 1546; Erasmus of Strasbourg then had it transferred to Saverne in 1609. At an unknown date, it was transferred to the charterhouse in Molsheim, but the reasons, circumstances and conditions of this transfer are not known. The Carthusian monks made a copy of it between 1693 and 1695, but kept it secret from scholars, visiting monks and still more from visitors. In 1790, it was the last prior who handed it over personally to the District Commissioner, Citizen Widenloecher. In 1792, all of the monastery's volumes were transported to Strasbourg and integrated into the municipal library, as were all of the books confiscated from the religious institutions of the Lower Rhine. This sealed the fate of most of these works, since the fire caused by the Prussian bombardment during the siege of Strasbourg in 1870 destroyed almost all the works stored in the building. The surviving works are those returned to the Church by the library in 1827 and entrusted to the Grand séminaire de Strasbourg, the latter