The De la Gardie Archive

Digitised parts of the archive

Only small parts of the archive are accessible online, including a selection of manuscripts and engravings and the entire map collection.

• Manuscripts in the De la Gardie Archive
• Engravings in the De la Gardie Archive
• The De la Gardie map collection

Archival descriptions

The archive is divided into a number of sections, having their own archival descriptions (all in Swedish):

• The historic documents, covering the period from Gustav Vasa to Karl XIV Johan, ca 1500-1830.
• The family archives, not only including the De la Gardie family but also some twenty other Swedish noble families. Here are correspondence, court documents, financial documents and biographical material from the most prominent families in Sweden.
• The topographical documents, which are divided by province and country. Here can be found documents concerning all the castles, manors and estates owned by the families in the archive:
• Topographica, Sverige
• Topographica, Danmark 
• Topographica, Finland
• Topographica, Balticum 
• Topographica, Tyskland 
• Topographica, Ingermanland och Kexholms län
• Topographica, Övriga länder

• Biographica minora, containing letters and various documents, from 1523 to 1842.
• Codices, divided according to subject; theological, legal, historical, philological och literary documents.
• The parchment letter collection , containing about 600 documents with seals from the 16th and 17th centuries. Originally the collection also contained medieval parchment letters, transferred to the National Archives in Stockholm after a decision by the Government in 1887.
• Varia, containing manuscripts on housekeeping, medical handbooks, poetry and accounts. 
• The Borrestad collection, which is a supplement to the archive, consisting of documents transferred from Borrestad to the Library in 1968. 
• The Hapsal collection, which is  a supplement  to the archive bought from Hapsal in Estonia in the 1930s.

About the collection

The main part of the De la Gardie Archive consists of family archives assembled for generations at the Sjöö estate in Uppland. They were transferred to Löberöd Castle in Skåne in the 1820's by Count and Field Marshal Jacob Gustaf De la Gardie, who also expanded the collections by adding his own material. At Löberöd the documents were sorted and listed during the first half of the 19th century by Peter Wieselgren.

The collections came to the University Library mainly on two separate occasions, in 1848 and 1892. Further additions came in the 1930's when the library acquired De la Gardie material from Hapsal in Estonia. In the end of the 1960's more documents and an extensive collections of maps and engravings came from Borrestad in Skåne.

Parts of the archive from Sjöö came to Estonia through Magnus Julius De la Gardie (1669-1791), and were moved after his death to the Tartu University Library. The National Archives also houses a considerable De la Gardie collection, especially regarding Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie (1622-1686).