Augsburg is a city in the Swabian part of Bavaria. For ove five centuries it has been "Freie Reichsstadt" - Free Town of the Holy Roman Empire. Here the Augsburg Confession was presented on the 25th of June 1530 on the Diet of Augsburg. Augsburg was the home of the Fugger family, a influencious bankers family in the Renaissance. The city was founded as "Augusta Vindelicorum" by the Romans. Augsburg was a centre of the Reformation and in 1537 the headmaster of the high school “Gymnasium bei St. Anna” was assigned by the council of the City to collect all the books from the empty minorite monasteries. This was the starting point of a public library that was newly constructed in the court of St. Anna church and opened in 1563. In the 19th century the expanding “Gymnasium bei St. Anna” needed more space, so a new and more spacious library was built which opened in 1893.