The research and edition project on the Fruitbearing Society (1617-1680; 890 members) is dedicated to an organisation that, as a comprehensive German Academy of the 17th century, was linked to a variety of linguistic, literary, scholarly, and (educational) political ambitions. Their work is inherent in national and European perspectives, which remained productive until the Enlightenment.
The source texts of this edition are collected from a large number of archives and collections in Germany and Europe; in the wide range of their themes, objects and aspects, even beyond the narrower history of society, the most diverse research interests and perspectives on the Early Modern Period find interdisciplinary points of contact.
Previously funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), the position at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel was transferred to the Saxon Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Leipzig at the beginning of 2001, whose catchment area also forms the historical heartland of the Society. For the first time ever, the edition will critically furnish and comment on all letters exchanged in the Fruitful Society’s affairs, supplemented by important academic papers and selected source texts.