Vilnius University is a special place that helped our capital and Lithuania to merge into Europe.
Try to guess what April Fool's Day, tax-free, Jesuit monks and Transylvania have in common. Vilnius University! It was established on April 1st, the Jesuits took care of its establishment, and the decisive "yes" was said by Stephen Batory, the ruler of Lithuania and Poland from Transylvania. He gave the university the tax-exempt status. Kazimierz Leon Sapieha founded the Law Faculty of VU in the 17th century. Unlike other nobles, he did not support churches, but threw all his efforts into the foundation of Vilnius University: he bought land, built buildings, and paid salaries to professors.
In the 18th century, the Observatory was established, it was almost as good as Greenwich Observatory. Elizabeth Oginska-Puzynina was interested in astronomy, so she generously financed its establishment.
German naturalist Adam Forster came to work at the university, he brought 650 types of seeds. Thanks to him the botanical garden of Vilnius University was planted and extended. A. Forster also became the dean of the faculty of nature and history. He was already famous for sailing around the world with James Cook.
The foundation of the library started much earlier than the University: a Jesuit college was operating here, and the books collected by the clergy and some noblemen were donated to them. The rulers also set a positive example. For instance, Sigismund II Augustus gave by will to the library his entire collection of books with leather covers and the coats of arms of Lithuania and Poland. Even today, the university keeps dozens of books which belonged to Sigismund II Augustus. Over time, a tradition developed that clergymen or other respectable public figures of the time considered it a matter of honour to donate books to the library.
Kazimierz Leon Sapieha donated as many as 3,000 of them in his will. The nearby printing house used to donate to the library one copy of a newly published book. During the first 200 years, the library gathered over 11,000 books. Valuable books were chained up: the head of the library had to unlock them, and after the person had finished reading, he would put the books on the reading table and lock them again. However, regardless of the protection, the books still often disappeared, so their owners would write all kinds of curses on the title page, such as:” If someone had stolen this book, he would be sent to hell for three years.”
Now Vilnius University has already collected 5.5 million. books!
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