CHAPTER I. LIBRARIES BUILT. Here, without travelling so far as Endor, I can call up the ablest spirits of ancient times, the learnedest philosophers, the wisest councillors, the greatest generals, and make them serviceable to me. I can make bold with the best jewels they have in their Treasury, with the same freedom that the Israelites borrowed of the Egyptians; and, without suspicion of felony, make use of them as mine own. I can here, without trespassing, go into their vineyards, and not only eat my fill of their grapes for my pleasure, but put up as much as I will in my vessel, and store it for my profit and advantage. WALLER (Divine Meditations). BOOK II. Chapter I. THE Laurentian Library at Florence, built by Michael Angelo, and the Library of St. Mark at Venice, built by Libraries built. Sansovino, are, as is well known, noble monuments of the genius of those great architects, but would be of small help as models for new structures. The illustrious artists were too intent on erecting buildings which should strikingly enhance the architectural beauty of Florence, or of Venice, to care much about the practical accommodation of books or of readers. Nor, indeed, can we rationally expect that edifices which are amongst the earliest that were raised for the special purpose of BOOK II. Chapter I. storing books for public use,—or rather for the use of Libraries built. the learned,—should evince much study of that Libraryeconomy for which theretofore there had been so little call. Few were even the single rooms then set apart for the reception of books, save in monasteries or in palaces. Laurentian Florence. Library at Venice. The first objects that strike the traveller on entering the Laurenziana are usually those "Storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim religious light," which were designed by one of the pupils of Raffaelle; and the next the rude and antique aspect of the many ponderous MS. volumes that are still chained to their desks, in the fashion of the sixteenth century. The proportions and the decoration of the principal room are very fine, but the staircase and the vestibule rather Old St. Mark's fantastic than pleasing. Sansovino's Library, on the other hand, has a noble staircase and vestibule, worthy of the fine apartment in which the books were deposited until 1812, when they were transferred to the "Hall of the Grand Council," where, in an architectural sense, they are perhaps the most magnificently lodged books in the world. But that richly painted and gilded ceiling; that long series of pictures, by Tintoretto, the Bassani, Jacopo Palma, and Zuccaro, representing the triumphs of Venice; those pieces of ancient sculpture, one of them attributed by Canova to Phidias;-and, above all, that famous "Frieze of Doges" (with its memorable gap,-Hic locus Marini Falieri decapitati pro criminibus,) throw too much into the shade, even such books and such bindings as those of the Library of St. Mark. The building stands out in its impressive beauty, and the books sink into mere accessories. BOOK II. Chapter. I. Libraries built. ries. Although the majority of the Monastic Libraries were probably deposited in rooms not originally erected for the reception of books, we know that in many cases apartments of considerable extent and of some magnificence were built expressly for this purpose. In the Monastic LibraMonastery of the Grey Friars in London, for example, there was a Library of which there is a curious description in a Cottonian MS., preserved in the British Museum, (Vitellius, F. XII.). It narrates the laying of the foundation- stone by Sir Richard Whyttington, Mayor of London, in 1421, and the roofing of the new building in the following year; and adds that "in three years after, it was floored, whitewashed, glazed, adorned with statues, and carving, and furnished with books," at an expense amounting to £556.16.9. Leland states that this Library was 129 feet long and 31 feet broad, and "most beautifully fitted up." Of the Library of the Monastery of St. Victor at Paris, built about eighty years later, we are told by Dr. Martin Lister (who visited it in 1698), that it was "a fair and large gallery... open three days a week... with seats. and conveniences of writing for 40 or 50 people." This Library continued to be one of the principal ornaments of Paris, in its kind, until the Revolution." 1 Collectanea, i, 109. 2 Journey to Paris (reprinted in Pinkerton's collection, iv, 34-43). BOOK 1. Chapter II. Bodleian It was also in the fifteenth Century, that the older Libraries built. portion of the noble Library of the University of Oxford, now the "Bodleian," was erected (over the Divinity School), mainly at the cost of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. The original building appears to have been begun about 1445, and not to have been finished until 1480. It is both substantial and elegant, and the additional buildings begun in the lifetime of Sir Thomas Bodley (in 1610,) at the east end, harmonize very well with it. The 'Selden portion' of the Library at the opposite end, erected between 1634, and 1640,1 gives to the entire edifice the form of the letter H. Of the noble aspect of the interior some idea may be afforded, to those readers who are not already familiar with it, by the subjoined cut. BOOKII. Chapter I. at Rome. Greatly in contrast with the compact form of the Bodleian Library, with its books every where visible, Libraries built. and its convenient galleries tempting to their use, are Vatican Library the vast halls of the Vatican, with their long ranges of sumptuous but carefully closed bookcases. There, the great majority of the books are as entirely out of sight, as if they were entombed, rather than preserved for purposes of study. The Library occupies one side of the palace, 900 feet in length. The presses are decorated with Etruscan Vases. The principal gallery terminates at one end in the Great Museum of the Vatican and the Hall of the Papyri, and, at the other end, in the New Museum, with which it communicates by a marble staircase. The Ante-room of the Library is 200 feet by 87 feet. The Manuscripts occupy ten rooms, and the general arrangement of the Library may be thus roughly indicated.1 I borrow this diagram, on account of its simplicity, from the very interesting Notices of Italian Libraries, by Mr. Curzon, previously referred to. |