THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY AT PARIS. 679 A and B, the former Hôtel Tuboeuf, etc., purchased by Card. Mazarine. These houses had been erected by the President Duret de Chivry. C, the buildings around this court were added by the Cardinal, and after his death formed the 'Hôtel de Nevers,' having been bequeathed to Philip de Mancini, Duke of Nevers. D, 'Préau de la Bourse.' E, Houses, built upon the former gardens of the Mazarine Palace. a and f, Courts of communication between the officers' apartments and the Library. b, c, d, e, Houses and apartments occupied by the officers of the Library. 9, Former communication with the court of the Hôtel Tuboeuf.' h, Former principal entrance. j, Principal store-room on the ground-floor; Receiving office for Prints in the Mezzanine; Director's apartments on the first floor. k, Architect's office. 1, Entrance to the gardens. m, Gallery for books, constructed by Visconti, in 1832. P, Ethnographical collection. q, Entrance from Rue Richelieu. r, s, t, u, Grand staircase, vestibules, etc.) r, Room for exhibition of Maps. Above it, Reading-room for MSS. x, Another map-room (Maps in relief, etc.). y, Store-room of the great work on Egypt. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Collection of Printed Books. 10, Room for new purchases, etc. 11, Bookbinding-room, etc. 12, Globe-room. Repository of imperfect works. 13, Works in parts. 14, Antiquities-The Zodiac, etc. 15, Vestibule. Above Nos. 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 and 15, is the great Reading-room. 16, Staircase leading to the Reading-room. 17, Mazarine Gallery.-Above it, the great gallery of MSS. 18, Books unbound. 19 and 20, Catalogues. 21, 22 and 23, Offices and Porter's Lodge. 24, The Arcade Colbert.' 25, Store-Room.-Above 24 and 25, is the Cabinet of Medals and Antiquities. 26, Court, 27, Keeper's Residence with entrance from the Rue Colbert. BOOK II. Chapter I. Libraries butli. BOOK II. Chapter I. It will be obvious that in the buildings thus far reLibraries built. viewed there has been little regard to economy of space, or to the readiest and cheapest provision for future enlargement. In many cases pre-existing circumstances may have hindered or made needless any consideration of the preferability, for example, in this point of view, of a circular ground plan, enclosed, or capable of enclosure, within an outer square. Ducal Library at Of such an arrangement,-save that the central structure is an oval, instead of a circle, and the outer building, consequently, a parallelogram instead of a square, we have an example in the celebrated Library of Wolfenbüttel, constructed by Duke Anthony Ulrich, between the years 1706 and 1710. The central rotunda is lighted by a lofty lantern, supported by twelve great pillars, which are cased with presses for books, and thus form, as it were, an inner hall.' The walls forming the oval are similarly cased 1 "Dieser, in länglich runder Form, 90 F. lang, 70 F. breit, und 4 Stockwerke hoch, ist der Hauptgedanke des ebenso schönen als zweckmässigen Bauplanes, und überrascht jeden Besucher durch seine würdigen Verhältnisse, deren Ausführung nur in den Nebensachen der eiligen Vollendung wegen noch Einiges zu wünschen übrig lässt."-Petzholdt, Handbuch deutscher Bibliotheken (1853), 402. RADCLIFFE LIBRARY AT OXFORD. 681 BOOK II. Chapter I. on both sides. The outer parallelogram is 150 feet in length and 110 feet in breadth, and contains in each Libraries built. corner a quintagonal room, appropriated to the rarer and choicer books, the collection of Bibles, the manuscripts, and the catalogues. This outer portion of the building is three stories high, and the arrangement is repeated on the upper floor, affording, it will be perceived, a large amount of shelf-room, and enhancing, by contrast, the imposing aspect of the rotunda within. at Oxford. This idea was partially adopted by Gibbs in his well Radcliffe Library known Radcliffe Library at Oxford, but he treated it much as the gipsies were said to treat stolen children. Like greater architects of an earlier day, he seems to have given himself little trouble about the proper arrangement and display of the books, or the due accommodation of the readers. No one, I think, who should first look upon the building in ignorance of its contents, would ever imagine it to be a Library, and a not inattentive very BOOK II. Chapter I. reader might look at every plate, and peruse almost Libraries built every line, of the folio volume1 in which the Architect has himself described his production, without at all perceiving for what purpose this showy edifice was erected. And, after all, the architectural effect, so osten tatiously sought, is but a poor and trivial one; so that it may reasonably be matter of regret that Dr. Radcliffe's first intentions-his "noble design," as Bishop Atterbury called it, 2-to make an addition to the Bodleian Library (extending from the western end of the Selden part of the building) was not carried into effect. 1 Bibliotheca Radcliviana, or a description of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, containing its several plans, parts, sections, elevations, and ornaments, etc., 1747. Atterbury's Correspondence, Letter 108. GRAND DUCAL LIBRARY AT CARLSRUHE. 683 BOOK II. Chapter I. The Grand Ducal Library at Carlsruhe. The Ducal Library of Carlsruhe (built, it would seem, about 1765,) presents an interesting modification of the Libraries built. crucial ground plan, so arranged as to turn to account the whole of the space which the building occupies; placing the reading-room in the centre, and adjacent to it, on either hand, four rooms, (A. B. C. D.) allotted to the manuscripts; the rare, and choice printed books, and the catalogues. The length of the building is 105 feet, and its breadth 52 feet 6 inches.1 B A London Institution. The Library building erected by the Proprietors of Library of the the "London Institution," between the years 1815 and 1818, at Moorfields, on lands belonging to the Corporation of London, was designed by, and erected under the superintendence of, Mr. William Brooks, after a competition between fifteen selected architects. It affords a good example of the combination of a Library with a lecture theatre, and possesses several points of high merit. It might, I think, be usefully adopted as a model for a Library of limited extent. Accommodation is already provided for upwards of 60,000 volumes, with reading-rooms, board-rooms, and other adjuncts, within a main building,-a parallelogram of three 1 De Laborde, Etude, etc, 23. |