There are many famous examples of looted books and libraries from the Thirty Years’ War.

The Bibliotheca Palatina, for example, was located in Heidelberg until 1623 and one of the most important German Renaissance libraries. It was seized when Catholic troops conquered Electoral Palatine and Heidelberg in 1622, and gifted to the Pope by duke Maximilian of Bavaria. In 1623 the library was transported to Rome by more than 200 hinnies and incorporated in the Bibliotheca Apostolocia Vaticana.

For the Swedish case, Peter Sjökvist researched the fate of books that were looted during the Thirty Years’ War such as the libraries in Mainz, Würzburg or Munich as well as Prague where Swedish troops among other books took the famous Codex Argenteus.

https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004715851

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Libraries and especially princely and religious libraries were a highly sought after war booty, not only during the Thirty Years’ War.

This was not so much due to their material value but their social and cultural capital if one uses Bourdieu’s terminology. Libraries did not solely accumulate the knowledge of their time. Moreover, they were testimonies of their owners' wealth and cultural literacy. Libraries, thus, could manifest or increase their owners' cultural and social status. (2/5)

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