Iron Library Foundation

The Iron Library - Foundation of Georg Fischer AG Schaffhausen - is a world-renowned specialist library and international meeting place for research into the history of technology. This special collection houses some of the oldest and rarest books in the world on the history of ferrous metallurgy, science and technology. It is housed in the beautiful old Paradise Monastery, whose grounds are located directly on the Upper Rhine. The collection comprises over 47,000 printed works dating back 750 years, many of them from the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. Visitors will find monographs on iron mining and processing, alchemy, archaeology, the history of technology and transportation, architecture, art history and artistic ironwork, economic and social history, mechanical engineering and bridge building, militaria, structural and civil engineering, shipbuilding, geosciences, mathematics, physics, chemistry, mining and mining law, natural history, mineralogy and metallurgy, metallurgy and materials testing. These include medieval manuscripts with writings by Aristotle, a copy of Isaac Newton's Principia (1687) and construction plans for the Eiffel Tower.