into the shelf, leaving the front edge of the leaves exposed
to view. Many old volumes bear a mark in ink on this front
edge; and when this is the case, we may be sure that it was
once chained in a library; and usually a little further
investigation will disclose the mark of a rivet on one of the
sides. Regulations were carefully made to prevent the mixture
of different kinds of books, and their overcrowding or
inconvenient position; while an organized system of lending
was in vogue, by which at least once a year, and less formally
at shorter intervals, the monks could change or renew the
volumes already on loan. … Let us take an example of the
arrangement of a monastic library of no special distinction in
A. D. 1400,—that at Titchfield Abbey,—describing it in the
words of the register of the monastery itself, only
translating the Latin into English.
{2008}
'The arrangement of the library of the monastery of Tychefeld
is this:—There are in the library of Tychefeld four cases
(columnae) in which to place books, of which two, the first
and second, are on the eastern face; on the southern face is
the third, and on the northern face the fourth. And each of
them has eight shelves (gradus), marked with a letter and
number affixed on the front of each shelf, that is to say, on
the lower board of each of the aforesaid shelves; certain
letters, however, are excepted, namely A, H, K, L, M, O, P, Q,
which have no numbers affixed, because all the volumes to
which one of those letters belongs are contained in the shelf
to which that letter is assigned. [That is, the shelves with
the letters A, H, K, etc., have a complete class of books in
each, and in no case does that class overflow into a second
shelf, so there was no need of marking these shelves with
numbers as well as letters, in the way in which the rest were
marked. Thus we should find 'B 1,' 'B 2,' 'B 3,' … 'B 7,'
because B filled seven shelves; but 'A' only, because A filled
one shelf alone.] So all and singular the volumes of the said
library are fully marked on the first leaf and elsewhere on
the shelf belonging to the book, with certain numbered
letters. And in order that what is in the library may be more
quickly found, the marking of the shelves of the said library,
the inscriptions in the books, and the references in the
register, in all points agree with each other. Anno Domini
MCCCC.' … Titchfield Abbey was a Præmonstratensian house,
founded in the thirteenth century, and never specially rich or
prominent; yet we find it with a good library of sixty-eight
books in theology, thirty-nine in Canon and Civil Law,
twenty-nine in Medicine, thirty-seven in Arts, and in all
three hundred and twenty-six volumes, many containing several
treatises, so that the total number of works was considerably
over a thousand."
F. Madan,
Books in Manuscript,
pp. 76-79.
LIBRARIES:
Renaissance.
Italy.
On the revival of learning in Italy, "scarcity of books was at
first a chief impediment to the study of antiquity. Popes and
princes and even great religious institutions possessed far
fewer books than many farmers of the present age. The library
belonging to the Cathedral Church of S. Martino at Lucca in
the ninth century contained only nineteen volumes of
abridgements from ecclesiastical commentaries. The Cathedral
of Novara in 1212 could boast copies of Boethius, Priscian,
the Code of Justinian, the Decretals, and the Etymology of
Isidorus, besides a Bible and some devotional treatises. This
slender stock passed for great riches. Each of the precious
volumes in such a collection was an epitome of mediæval art.
Its pages were composed of fine vellum adorned with pictures.
The initial letters displayed elaborate flourishes and
exquisitely illuminated groups of figures. The scribe took
pains to render his caligraphy perfect, and to ornament the
margins with crimson, gold, and blue. Then he handed the
parchment sheets to the binder, who encased them in rich
settings of velvet or carved ivory and wood, embossed with
gold and precious stones. The edges were gilt and stamped with
patterns. The clasps were of wrought silver chased with
niello. The price of such masterpieces was enormous. … Of
these MSS. the greater part were manufactured in the
cloisters, and it was here too that the martyrdom of ancient
authors took place. Lucretius and Livy gave place to
chronicles, antiphonaries, and homilies. Parchment was
extremely dear, and the scrolls which nobody could read might
be scraped and washed. Accordingly, the copyist erased the
learning of the ancients, and filled the fair blank space he
gained with litanies. At the same time it is but just to the
monks to add that palimpsests have occasionally been found in
which ecclesiastical works have yielded place to copies of the
Latin poets used in elementary education. Another obstacle to
the diffusion of learning was the incompetence of the
copyists. It is true that at the great universities
'stationarii,' who supplied the text-books in use to students,
were certified and subjected to the control of special censors
called 'Preciani.' Yet their number was not large, and when
they quitted the routine to which they were accustomed their
incapacity betrayed itself by numerous errors. Petrarch's
invective against the professional copyists shows the depth to
which the art had sunk. 'Who,' he exclaims, 'will discover a
cure for the ignorance and vile sloth of these copyists, who
spoil everything and turn it to nonsense? If Cicero, Livy, and
other illustrious ancients were to return to life, do you
think they would understand their own works? There is no check
upon these copyists, selected without examination or test of
their capacity.' … At the same time the copyists formed a
necessary and flourishing class of craftsmen. They were well
paid. … Under these circumstances it was usual for even the
most eminent scholars, like Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Poggio,
to make their own copies of MSS. Niccolo de' Niccoli
transcribed nearly the whole of the codices that formed the
nucleus of the Library of the Mark. … It is clear that the
first step toward the revival of learning implied three
things: first, the collection of MSS. wherever they could be
saved from the indolence of the monks; secondly, the formation
of libraries for their preservation; and, thirdly, the
invention of an art whereby they might be multiplied cheaply,
conveniently, and accurately. The labour involved in the
collection of classical manuscripts had to be performed by a
few enthusiastic scholars, who received no help from the
universities and their academical scribes, and who met with no
sympathy in the monasteries they were bent on ransacking. …
The monks performed at best the work of earthworms, who
unwittingly preserve fragments of Greek architecture from
corrosion by heaping mounds of mould and rubbish round them.
Meanwhile the humanists went forth with the instinct of
explorers to release the captives and awake the dead. From the
convent libraries of Italy, from the museums of
Constantinople, from the abbeys of Germany and Switzerland and
France, the slumbering spirits of the ancients had to be
evoked. … This work of discovery began with Petrarch. … It
was carried on by Boccaccio. The account given by Benvenuto da
Imola of Boccaccio's visit to Monte Cassino brings vividly
before us both the ardour of these first explorers and the
apathy of the Benedictines (who have sometimes been called the
saviours of learning) with regard to the treasures of their
own libraries. …
{2009}
'Desirous of seeing the collection of books, which he
understood to be a very choice one, he modestly asked a
monk—for he was always most courteous in manners—to open the
library, as a favour, for him. The monk answered stiffly,
pointing to a steep staircase, "Go up; it is open." Boccaccio
went up gladly; but he found that the place which held so
great a treasure was without door or key. He entered, and saw
grass sprouting on the windows, and all the books and benches
thick with dust. In his astonishment he began to open and turn
the leaves of first one tome and then another, and found many
and divers volumes of ancient and foreign works. Some of them
had lost several sheets; others were snipped and pared all
round the text, and mutilated in various ways. At length,
lamenting that the toil and study of so many illustrious men
should have passed into the hands of most abandoned wretches,
he departed with tears and sighs. Coming to the cloister, he
asked a monk whom he met, why those valuable books had been so
disgracefully mangled. He answered that the monks, seeking to
gain a few soldi, were in the habit of cutting off sheets and
making psalters, which they sold to boys. The margins too they
manufactured into charms, and sold to women.' … What Italy
contained of ancient codices soon saw the light. The visit of
Poggio Bracciolini to Constance (1414) opened up for Italian
scholars the stores that lay neglected in transalpine
monasteries. … The treasures he unearthed at Reichenau,
Weingarten, and above all S. Gallen, restored to Italy many
lost masterpieces of Latin literature, and supplied students
with full texts of authors who had hitherto been known in
mutilated copies. The account he gave of his visit to S.
Gallen in a Latin letter to a friend is justly celebrated. …
'In the middle [he says] of a well-stocked library, too large
to catalogue at present, we discovered Quintilian, safe as yet
and sound, though covered with dust and filthy with neglect
and age. The books, you must know, were not housed according
to their worth, but were lying in a most foul and obscure
dungeon at the very bottom of a tower, a place into which
condemned criminals would hardly have been thrust; and I am
firmly persuaded that if anyone would but explore those
ergastula of the barbarians wherein they incarcerate such men,
we should meet with like good fortune in the case of many
whose funeral orations have long ago been pronounced. Besides
Quintilian, we exhumed the three first books and a half of the
fourth book of the Argonautica of Flaccus, and the
Commentaries of Asconius Pedianus upon eight orations of
Cicero.' … Never was there a time in the world's history
when money was spent more freely upon the collection and
preservation of MSS., and when a more complete machinery was
put in motion for the sake of securing literary treasures."
J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Revival of Learning,
chapter 3.
LIBRARIES: Modern.
Europe: Rise and growth of the greater Libraries.
In a work entitled "Essai Statistique sur les Bibliothèques de
Vienne," published in 1835, M. Adrien Balbi entered into an
examination of the literary and numerical value of the
principal libraries of ancient and modern times. M. Balbi, in
this work, shows that "the Imperial Library of Vienna,
regularly increasing from the epoch of its formation, by means
equally honorable to the sovereign and to the nation, held,
until the French revolution, the first place among the
libraries of Europe. Since that period, several other
institutions have risen to a much higher numerical rank. …
No one of the libraries of the first class, now in existence,
dates beyond the fifteenth century. The Vatican, the origin of
which has been frequently carried back to the days of St.
Hilarius, in 465, cannot, with any propriety, be said to have
deserved the name of library before the reign of Martin the
Fifth, by whose order it was removed from Avignon to Rome in
1417. And even then, a strict attention to the force of the
term would require us to withhold from it this title, until
the period of its final organization by Nicholas the Fifth, in
1447. It is difficult to speak with certainty concerning the
libraries, whether public or private, which are supposed to
have existed previous to the fifteenth century, both on
account of the doubtful authority and indefiniteness of the
passages in which they are mentioned, and the custom which so
readily obtained, in those dark ages, of dignifying every
petty collection with the name of library. But many libraries
of the fifteenth century being still in existence, and others
having been preserved long enough to make them the subject of
historical inquiry before their dissolution, it becomes easier
to fix, with satisfactory accuracy, the date of their
foundation. We find accordingly, that, including the Vatican,
and the libraries of Vienna, Ratisbon, and the Laurentian of
Florence, which are a few years anterior to it, no less than
ten were formed between the years 1430 and 1500. The increase
of European libraries has generally been slowly progressive,
although there have been periods of sudden augmentation in
nearly all. Most of them began with a small number of
manuscripts, sometimes with a few printed volumes, and often
without any. To these, gradual accessions were made, from the
different sources, which have always been more or less at the
command of the sovereigns and nobles of Europe. In 1455, the
Vatican contained 5,000 manuscripts. … Far different was the
progress of the Royal Library of Paris. The origin of this
institution is placed in the year 1595, the date of its
removal from Fontainebleau to Paris by order of Henry the
Fourth. In 1660, it contained but 1,435 printed volumes. In
the course of the following year, this number was raised to
16,746, both printed volumes and manuscripts. During the
ensuing eight years the library was nearly doubled; and before
the close of the next century, it was supposed to have been
augmented by upwards of 100,000 volumes more."
G. W. Greene,
Historical Studies,
pages 278-281.
"The oldest of the great libraries of printed books is
probably that of Vienna, which dates from 1440, and is said to
have been opened to the public as early as 1575. The Town
Library of Ratisbon dates from 1430; St. Mark's Library at
Venice, from 1468; the Town Library of Frankfort, from 1484;
that of Hamburg, from 1529; of Strasburg, from 1531; of
Augsburg, from 1537; those of Berne and Geneva, from 1550;
that of Basel, from 1564. The Royal Library of Copenhagen was
founded about 1550. In 1671 it possessed 10,000 volumes; in
1748, about 65,000; in 1778, 100,000; in 1820, 300,000; and it
now contains 410,000 volumes. The National Library of Paris was
founded in 1595, but was not made public until 1737. In 1640
it contained about 17,000 volumes; in 1684, 50,000; in 1775,
150,000; in 1790, 200,000."
E. Edwards,
A Statistical View of the Principal Public Libraries in
Europe and the United States Of America,
(Journal of the Statistical Society, August., 1848).
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LIBRARIES: Modern.
Germany.
According to "Minerva" (the "Year-book of the Learned World"),
for 1893-94, the Royal Library at Berlin contains 850,000
printed books and 24,622 manuscripts; the Münich University
Library, 370,000 books and 50,000 pamphlets, including 2,101
incunabula; the Leipsic University Library, 500,000 printed
books, and 4,000 manuscripts; Heidelberg University Library,
400,000 bound volumes (including 1,000 incunabula), and
175,000 pamphlets and "dissertationen," with a large
collection of manuscripts; Dresden Royal Public Library,
300,000 printed books (including 2,000 incunabula), 6,000
manuscripts, and 20,000 maps; Freiburg University Library,
250,000 volumes and over 500 manuscripts; Königsberg
University Library, 220,000 volumes and 1,100 manuscripts;
Tübingen University Library, 300,000 volumes and 3,500
manuscripts; Jena University Library, 200,000 volumes and
100,000 "dissertationen"; Halle University Library, 182,000
books and 800 manuscripts, besides 12,800 books, 35,000
pamphlets and 1,040 manuscripts in the Ponickausche
Bibliothek, which is united with the University Library;
Hamburg City Library, about 500,000 printed books and 5,000
manuscripts; Frankfort City Library (April, 1893), 326,139
volumes; Cologne City Library, 105,000 volumes, including
2,000 incunabula; Augsburg City and Provincial Library, about
200,000 volumes (including 1,760 incunabula) and 2,000
manuscripts; Göttingen University Library, 456,000 volumes of
books and 5,300 manuscripts; Gotha Public Library, 200,000
printed books, including 1,029 incunabula, and 7,037
manuscripts, of which 3,500 are oriental; Greifswald
University Library, 143 volumes of printed books and about 800
manuscripts; Bamberg Royal Public Library, 300,000 volumes,
3,132 manuscripts; Berlin University Library, 142,129 volumes;
Bonn University Library, 219,000 volumes, including 1,235
incunabula, and 1,273 manuscripts; Bremen City Library,
120,000 volumes; Breslau University Library, 300,000 volumes,
including about 2,500 incunabula, and about 3,000 manuscripts;
Breslau City Library, 150,000 volumes and 3,000 manuscripts;
Erlangen University Library, 180,000 volumes; Hanover Royal
Public Library, 180,000 books and 3,500 manuscripts; Hanover
City Library, 47,000 volumes; Carlsruhe Grand-ducal Library,
159,842 books and 3,754 manuscripts; Kiel University Library,
217,039 volumes, 2,375 manuscripts; Colmar City Library,
80,000 volumes; Marburg University Library, 150,000 volumes;
Strasburg University Library, 700,000 volumes; Strasburg City
Library, 90,000 volumes; Weimar Grand-ducal Library, 223,000
volumes and 2,000 manuscripts; Würzburg University Library,
300,000 volumes.
Minerva, 1893-94.
"The Munich library, … in matter of administration,
resembles the British Museum. Here one finds carefully
catalogued that great wealth of material that appears only in
doctorate theses, and for this reason is most valuable to the
historic student. No tedious formalities are insisted upon,
and orders for books are not subjected to long delays. The
Vienna library moves slowly, as though its machinery were
retarded by the weight of its royal imperial name. The
catalogue is not accessible, the attendants are not anxious to
please, and the worker feels no special affection for the
institution. But at the royal library of Berlin there exists
an opposite state of affairs—with the catalogue at hand one
can readily give the information needful in filling up the
call card. This being a lending library, one occasionally
meets with disappointment, but, as the privilege of borrowing
is easily had, this feature can have a compensatory side. The
most marked peculiarity found here is the periodic delivery of
books. All books ordered before nine o'clock are delivered at
eleven; those before eleven, at one; those before one, at
three; and those after three are delivered the same day if
possible. This causes some delay, but as soon as the rule is
known it has no drawback for the continuous user, and for the
benefit of one who wants only a single order there is placed
at the outer door of the building a box into which one can
deposit the call card, and returning at the proper time find
the book waiting in the reading room above. This saves the
climbing of many steps, and enables one to perform other
duties between ordering and receiving. As far as I know, here
alone does one purchase the call cards, but as the price is
only twenty cents per hundred the cost is not an important
item."
J. H. Gore,
Library Facilities for Study in Europe
(Educational Review, June, 1893).
In Berlin, "the report of the city government for 1889-00
reckons 25 public free libraries; 334,837 books were read by
14,900 persons, i. e., 17,219 volumes less than last year. The
expenses were 26,490 marks, the allowance from the city
treasury 23,400 marks [less than $6,000]."
The Library Journal, May, 1892.
LIBRARIES: France:
The Bibliothèque Nationale.
"The history of the vast collection of books which is now,
after many wanderings, definitely located in the Rue de
Richelieu, divides itself naturally into three periods, which,
for the sake of convenience, may well be called by three of
the names under which the Library has, at different times,
been known. The first period is that in which the Library was
nothing more than the private collection of each successive
sovereign of France, which sometimes accompanied him in his
journeys, and but too often, as in the case of King John, or
that of Charles VII., shared in his misfortunes; it was then
fitly called the 'Bibliothèque du Roi.' This period may be
considered as ending in the time of Henry IV., who transferred
the royal collection from Fontainebleau to Paris, and gave it
a temporary home in the College de Clermont. Although its
abode has often been changed since, it has never again been
attached to a royal palace, or been removed from the capital.
The second period dates from this act of Henry the Fourth's,
and extends down to the Revolution of 1780, during which time
the Library, although open with but slight restrictions to all
men of letters who were well recommended, and to the general
public for two days a week, from the year 1692, was not
regarded as national property, but as an appendage of the
Crown, which was indeed graciously opened to the learned, but
was only national property in the same sense that the Queen's
private library at Windsor is national property.
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Although still called the Bibliothèque du Roi during this
period, it may well be here spoken of, for the sake of
distinction, as the Bibliothèque Royale down to the
Revolution. In 1791, the King's library was proclaimed
national property, and it was decreed that it should
henceforth be called 'Bibliothèque Nationale,' which name it
bore till the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French,
in 1805, when it was styled 'Bibliothèque Impériale.' Of
course it was Bibliothèque Royale again in 1815, 'Nationale'
in 1848, and once again, in 1852, was declared to be the
'Bibliothèque Impériale.'"
Imperial Library of Paris
(Westminster Review, April, 1870).
After the fall of the Second Empire, the great library again
became "Nationale" in name. According to a report made in the
spring of 1894, the Bibliothèque Nationale of France
contained, at the end of the previous year, 1,934,154
"'numbers,' forming at least 2,600,000 volumes." This report
was made by a committee of twenty persons, appointed to
consider the advisability and method of printing the catalogue
of the library. The conclusions of the committee are favorable
to the printing of the catalogue.
The Nation,
May 17, 1894.
Books come to the National Library "in three ways: from (1)
gifts, about 3,000 a year; … (2) purchase, 4,500 (the
library has $20,000 a year to spend on books and binding); (3)
copyright, 22,000 articles and 6,000 pieces of music. The
printer, not the publisher, is bound to make the deposit, so
that if the text and the illustrations are printed at
different places there is a chance, unless everyone is
careful, that the library will have an imperfect copy. But the
greatest trouble comes from periodicals, of which the
Bibliothèque Nationale receives 3,000. What would some of our
librarians think of this who are inclined to boast or to
lament that they receive 300? Every number of every newspaper
in France must be received, sent for if it fails to come,
registered, put on its pile, and at the end of the year tied
up in a bundle and put away (for only the most important are
bound). … The titles of new books are printed in a bulletin
in two series, French and Foreign (causing a printer's bill of
5,000 francs a year). This began in 1875 for the foreign, and
in 1882 for the French. These bulletins are cut up and the
titles mounted on slips, which are fastened in a Leyden
binder, three making a small folio page. The result is a
series of 900 volumes, less easy to consult than a good card
catalog, very much less easy than the British Museum pasted
catalog, the Rudolph books, or the Rudolph machine. … The
books received at the Bibliothèque Nationale before 1875 and
1882 are entered on some 2,000,000 slips, which are divided
between two catalogs, that of the old library ('fonds
ancien'), and of the intermediate library ('fonds
intermédiarie'). In each of these catalogs they are arranged
in series according to the subject divisions given above and
under each subject alphabetically. There is no author catalog
and the public are not allowed to consult these catalogs. If
then a reader asks for a work received before 1875 the
attendant guesses in which 'fonds' it is and what subject it
treats of; if he does not find it where he looks first he
tries some other division. No wonder it takes on an average
half an hour for the reader to get his book. I must bear
witness to the great skill which necessity has developed in
the officials charged with this work. Some of their successes
in bringing me out-of-the-way books were marvellous. On the
other hand, when they reported certain works not in the
library I did not feel at all sure that they were right, and I
dare say they doubted themselves. All this will be changed
when the library gets a printed alphabetical catalog of
authors and has made from it a pasted alphabetical catalog of
subjects. The author catalog, by the way, is expected to fill
40,000 double-columned quarto pages. … The library now has
50 kilometres (31 miles) of shelves and is full. A new
store-house is needed and a public reading room ('salle de
lecture'), which can be lighted by electricity, and be opened,
like the British Museum, in the evening."
C. A. Cutter,
Notes on the Bibliothèque Nationale
(Library Journal, June, 1894).
LIBRARIES: France:
Paris Municipal Libraries.
"The Bibliothèques Municipales de Paris have undergone a rapid
development within the last few years. In 1878 there were only
nine altogether, of which five were little used, and four
practically unused. A special Bureau was then appointed by the
Municipal Council to take charge of them, with the result that
altogether 22 libraries have been opened, while the number of
volumes lent rose from 29,339 in 1878 to 57,840 in 1879, to
147,567 in 1880, to 242,738 in 1881, and to 363,322 in 1882.
… A sum of 3,050 francs is placed at the disposal of each
library by the Municipal Council, which is thus appropriated;
Books and Binding, Fr. 1,750; Librarian, 1,000; Attendant,
300. The amount of the sums thus voted by the Municipal
Council in the year 1883 was 110,150 fr. For the year of 1884
the sum of 171,700 fr. has been voted, the increase being
intended to provide for the establishment of fifteen new
libraries in Communal Schools, as well as for the growing
requirements of some of the libraries already established. The
individual libraries are not, of course, as yet very
considerable in point of numbers. The stock possessed by the
twenty-two Bibliothèques Municipales in 1882 was 87,831
volumes, of which 20,411 had been added during that year.
Information received since the publication of M. Dardenne's
Report places the number in 1883 at 98,843 volumes. … The
libraries are open to the public gratuitously every evening
from 8 to 10 o'clock, and are closed on five days only during
the whole year. Books may be read in the library or are lent
out for home use. … Music is lent as well as books, the
experiment having been first tried at the Mairie of the second
arrondissement, in 1879, and having proved so successful that
nine arrondissements have followed suit, and the total number
of musical issues from the ten libraries in 1882 was 9,085.
… Beside these libraries under the direction of the Mairies,
there are a certain number of popular free libraries
established and supported by voluntary efforts. Without
dwelling upon the history of these libraries, all of which
have been formed since 1860, it may be stated that there are
now fourteen such libraries in as many arrondissements."
E. C. Thomas,
The Popular Libraries of Paris
(Library Chronicle, volume 1, 1884, pages 13-14).
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"The Journal Officiel' contains in the number for August 29,
of this year (1891), the substance of the following account:
… The city of Paris has now 64 public libraries, all of
which send out books and accommodate readers in their halls;
they are open at the times when the factories and shops are
closed. … The libraries are kept in the mayoralty buildings
or ward district school-houses; a central office provides for
the administration and support, while in each precinct a
committee of superintendence attends to the choice and
ordering of new accessions. All expenses are paid by the city,
which, in its last budget, in 1890, appropriated therefor the
trifle of 225,000 francs. On every library in full use are
bestowed yearly about 2,400 francs, while 14,000 francs are
employed in founding new ones. The number of books circulated
in 1890 was 1,386,642, against 29,339 in 1878, in the nine
libraries then existing. In 1878 there was an average of only
3,259 readers for each library, and in the last year the
average was 23,500, which shows a seven-fold use of the
libraries."
Public Libraries in Paris;
translated from the Börsenblatt,
October 7, 1891
(Library Journal, May, 1892).
LIBRARIES: France:
Other Libraries.
A library of importance in Paris second only to the great
National is the Mazarin, which contains 300,000 volumes (1,000
incunabula), and 5,800 manuscripts. The Library of the
University has 141,678 volumes; the Library of the Museum of
Natural History has 140,850 books and 2,050 manuscripts; the
Sainte-Genevieve Library contains 120,000 volumes and 2,392
manuscripts; the Library of the City of Paris, 90,000 volumes
and 2,000 manuscripts. The principal libraries of the
provincial cities are reported as follows: Caen Municipal
Library, 100,000 volumes, 620 manuscripts; Dijon Municipal
Library, 100,000 volumes, 1,558 manuscripts; Marseilles City
Library, 102,000 volumes, 1,656 manuscripts; Montpelier City
Library, 120,000 volumes; Nantes City Library, 102,172
volumes, 2,231 manuscripts; Rheims Library, 100,000 books and
1,700 manuscripts; Lyons City Library and Library of the
Palace of Arts, 160,000 volumes and 1,900 manuscripts;
Toulouse City Library, 100,000 volumes and 950 manuscripts;
Rouen City Library, 132,000 printed books and 3,800
manuscripts; Avignon, 117,000 volumes and 3,300 manuscripts;
Bordeaux, 160,000 volumes, 1,500 manuscripts; Tours, 100,000
volumes and 1,743 manuscripts; Amiens, 80,000 volumes, 1,500
manuscripts; Besançon, 140,000 volumes and 1,850 manuscripts.
Minerva, 1893-94.
LIBRARIES:
Italy.
"There are in Italy between thirty and forty libraries which
the present National Government, in recognition of former
Governmental support, is committed to maintain, at least in
some degree. It is a division of resources which even a rich
country would find an impediment in developing a proper
National Library, and Italy, with its over-burdened Treasury,
is far from being in a position to offer the world a single
library of the first class. … Italy, to build up a library
which shall rank with the great national libraries of the
future, will need to concentrate her resources; for though she
has libraries now which are rich in manuscripts, she has not
one which is able to meet the great demands of modern
scholarship for printed books. … If with this want of
fecundity there went a corresponding slothfulness in
libraries, there would be little to be hoped of Italy in
amassing great collections of books. In some respects I have
found a more active bibliothecal spirit in Italy than
elsewhere in Europe, and I suspect that if Italian unification
has accomplished nothing else, it has unshackled the minds of
librarians, and placed them more in sympathy with the modern
gospel which makes a library more the servant than the master
of its users. I suspect this is not, as a rule, the case in
Germany. … I have certainly found in Italian librarians a
great alertness of mind and a marked eagerness to observe the
advances in library methods which have taken place elsewhere
during the last five and twenty years. But at the same time,
with all this activity, the miserable bureaucratic methods of
which even the chance stranger sees so much in Italy, are
allowed to embarrass the efforts of her best librarians. …
In the present condition of Italian finances nothing adequate
to the needs of the larger libraries can be allowed, and the
wonder is that so much is done as is apparent; and it is
doubtless owing to the great force of character which I find
in some of the leading librarians that any progress is made at
all. During the years when the new Italian kingdom had its
capital in Florence a certain amount of concentration started
the new Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale on its career; and when
later the Government was transferred to Rome, the new capital
was given another library, got together in a similar way,
which is called the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele.
Neither collection is housed in any way suited to its
functions, and the one at Florence is much the most important;
indeed it is marvellously rich in early printed books and in
manuscripts."
J. Winsor,
The condition of Italian Libraries
(The Nation, July 9, 1891).
LIBRARIES:
The Vatican Library.
"Even so inveterate a hater of literature as the Calif, who
conquered Alexandria and gave its precious volumes to the
flames, would have appreciated such a library as the Vatican.
Not a book is to be seen—not a shelf is visible, and there is
nothing to inform the visitor that he is in the most famous
library in the world. … The eye is bewildered by innumerable
busts, statues, and columns. The walls are gay with brilliant
arabesques, and the visitor passes through lofty corridors and
along splendid galleries, finding in every direction something
to please and interest him. … The printed books number about
125,000 volumes and there are about 25,000 manuscripts. The
books and manuscripts are enclosed in low wooden cases around
the walls of the various apartments, the cases are painted in
white and gold colors, and thus harmonize with the gay
appearance of the walls and ceilings. … The honor of
founding the Vatican Library belongs to Pope Nicholas V., who,
in 1447, transferred to the Palace of the Vatican the
manuscripts which had been collected in the Lateran. At his
death the library contained 9,000 manuscripts, but many of
them were dispersed under his successor, Calixtus III. Sixtus
IV. was very active in restoring and increasing the library.
In 1588, the present library building was erected by Sixtus
V., to receive the immense collection obtained by Leo X. In
the year 1600 the value of the library was greatly augmented
by the acquisition of the collection of Fulvius Ursinus and
the valuable manuscripts from the Benedictine Monastery of
Bobbio, composed chiefly of palimpsests. …
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The next acquisition was the Library of the Elector Palatine,
captured in 1621, at Heidelberg, by De Tilley, who presented
it to Gregory XV. It numbered 2,388 manuscripts, 1,956 in
Latin, and 432 in Greek. In 1658 the Library founded by Duke
Federigo de Urbino—1,711 Greek and Latin manuscripts—was
added to the valuable collection. One of the most valuable
accessions was the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden,
containing all the literary works which her father, Gustavus
Adolphus, had captured at Prague, Bremen, etc., amounting to
2,291 manuscripts, Greek and Latin. In 1746 the magnificent
library of the Ottobuoni family, containing 3,862 Greek and
Latin manuscripts, enriched the Vatican collection. After the
downfall of Napoleon and the restoration of the peace of
Europe in 1815, the King of Prussia, at the suggestion of
Humboldt, applied to Pope Pius VII for the restoration of some
of the manuscripts which De Tilley had plundered from the
Heidelberg Library. The Pope, mindful of the prominent part
taken by Prussia in the restoration of the Papal See,
immediately complied with the royal request, and many
manuscripts of great value to the German historians were sent
back to Germany."
E. L. Didier,
The Vatican Library
(Literary World, June 28, 1884).
The following recent statistics of other Italian libraries are
from "Minerva," 1893-94: Florence National Central Library,
422,183 printed books, 398,845 pamphlets and 17,386
manuscripts; Rome, National Central Library of Victor
Emmanuel, 241,978 books, 130,728 pamphlets, 4,676 manuscripts;
Naples University Library, 181,072 printed books, 43,453
pamphlets, and 109 manuscripts; Bologna University Library,
251,700 books, 43,633 pamphlets and 5,000 manuscripts; Pavia
University Library, 136,000 books, 80,000 pamphlets and 1,100
manuscripts; Turin National Library, 196,279 printed books and
4,119 manuscripts; Venice, National Library of St. Mark,
401,652 printed and bound books, 80,450 pamphlets, and 12,016
manuscripts; Pisa University Library, 108,188 books, 22,960
pamphlets and 274 manuscripts; Genoa University Library,
106,693 books, 46,231 pamphlets, and 1,586 manuscripts;
Modena, the Este Library, 123,300 volumes, and 5,000
manuscripts; Padua University Library, 135,837 volumes, 2,326
manuscripts, and 63,849 pamphlets, etc.; Palermo National
Library, 177,892 volumes and pamphlets, and 1,527 manuscripts;
Palermo Communal Library, 209,000 books, 16,000 pamphlets,
etc., 3,000 manuscripts; Parma Palatine Library, 250,000
books, 20,313 pamphlets, etc., 4,769 manuscripts; Siena
Communal Library 67,966 volumes, 26,968 pamphlets, 4,890
manuscripts.
LIBRARIES:
Austria-Hungary.
The principal libraries in the Empire are reported to contain
as follows: Vienna University Library, 416,608 volumes, 373
incunabula, 498 manuscripts; Vienna Imperial and Royal Court
Library, 500,000 volumes, 6,461 incunabula, and 20,000
manuscripts; Budapest University Library, 200,000 volumes,
1,000 manuscripts; Hungarian National Museum, 400,000 volumes
and 63,000 manuscripts, mostly Hungarian; Czernowitz
University Library, 64,586 volumes and over 30,000 pamphlets,
etc.; Graz University 131,397 volumes of books and 1,708
manuscripts; Innspruck University Library, 135,000 printed
books, including 1,653 incunabula, and 1,046 manuscripts;
Cracow University Library, 283,858 volumes and 5,150
manuscripts; Lemberg University Library, 120,900 volumes;
Prague University Library, 211,131 volumes, 3,848 manuscripts.
Minerva, 1893-94.
LIBRARIES:
Switzerland.
The principal libraries of Switzerland are the following:
Basle Public Library, 170,000 volumes of printed books and
about 5,000 manuscripts; Berne City Library, 80,000 volumes
and a valuable manuscript collection; Berne University
Library, 35,000 volumes; St. Gall "Stiftsbibliothek," about
40,000 volumes, including l,584 incunabula, and 1,730
manuscripts; Lucerne Cantonal Library, 80,000 volumes; Zurich
City Library, 130,000 volumes.
Minerva, 1893-94.
LIBRARIES:
Holland.
The following statistics of libraries in Holland are given in
the German handbook, "Minerva," 1893-94: Leyden University
Library, 190,000 volumes of printed books and 5,400
manuscripts, of which latter 2,400 are oriental; Utrecht
University Library, 200,000 volumes, besides pamphlets;
Groningen University Library, 70,000 volumes.
LIBRARIES:
Belgium.
Brussels Royal Library, 375,000 volumes, and 27,000
manuscripts; Ghent, Library of the City and University of
Gand, 300,000 volumes.
LIBRARIES:
Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
The principal libraries of the Scandinavian kingdoms contain
as follows: Christiania University Library, 312,000 volumes;
Gothenburg City Library, about 60,000 volumes; Copenhagen
University Library 300,000 books and 5,000 manuscripts; Lund
University Library, 150,000 volumes; Stockholm Royal Library,
300,000 printed books and 11,000 manuscripts; Upsala
University Library, 275,000 volumes and 11,000 manuscripts.
Minerva, 1893-94.
LIBRARIES:
Spain.
The principal libraries in Spain are the following: Barcelona
Provincial and University Library, 54,000 volumes; Madrid
University Library, 200,761 volumes and 3,000 manuscripts;
Madrid National Library, 450,000 volumes and 10,000
manuscripts; Salamanca University Library, 72,000 volumes and
870 manuscripts; Seville University Library, 62,000 volumes;
Valencia University Library, 45,000 volumes; Valladolid
University Library, 32,000 volumes.
Minerva, 1893-94.
LIBRARIES:
Russia.
"The most notable [Russian] libraries are those founded by the
government. Of these, two deserve special attention: the
library of the Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Public
Library in St. Petersburg. Books taken by the Russian armies
from the Baltic provinces at the beginning of the eighteenth
century formed the foundation of the first. The Imperial
Library was the result of the Russian capture of Warsaw. Count
Joseph Zalussky, bishop of Kiev, spent forty-three years
collecting a rich library of 300,000 volumes and 10,000
manuscripts, devoting all his wealth to the purchase of books.
His brother Andrew further enriched the library with volumes
taken from the museum of the Polish king, John III. In 1747
Joseph Zalussky opened the library to the public, and in 1761
bequeathed it to a college of Jesuits in Warsaw. Six years
later (1767) Zalussky was arrested and his library removed to
St. Petersburg. The transfer took place in bad weather and
over poor roads, so that many books were injured and many lost
in transit. When the library reached St. Petersburg it
numbered 262,640 volumes and 24,500 estampes. Many had been
stolen during the journey, and years later there were to be
found in Poland books bearing the signature of Zalussky.
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To the Imperial Library Alexander I. added, in 1805, the
Dubrovsky collection. … Dubrovsky gathered his collection
during a twenty-five years' residence in Paris, Rome, Madrid,
and other large cities of Europe. He acquired many during the
French revolution. … The Imperial Library possesses many
palimpsests, Greek manuscripts of the second century, …
besides Slavonian, Latin, French, and Oriental manuscripts.
… The library is constantly growing, about 25,000 volumes
being added every year. In income, size, and number of readers
it vastly surpasses all private libraries in Russia, the
largest of which does not exceed 25,000 volumes. In later
years the village schools began to open libraries for limited
circles of readers. Small libraries were successfully
maintained in cities and the demand for good reading steadily
increased among the people."
A. V. Babine,
Libraries in Russia,
(Library Journal, March, 1893).
The principal libraries of Russia reported in the German
yearbook "Minerva" 1893-94 are the following: Charkow
University Library, 123,000 volumes; Dorpat University
Library, 170,000 volumes, and 104,700 dissertationen;
Helsingfors University Library 170,000 volumes; Kasan
University Library, 100,000 volumes; Kiev University Library,
118,000 volumes; Moscow University Library, 217,000 volumes;
Odessa University Library, 102,000 volumes; St. Petersburg
University Library, 215,700 volumes; St. Petersburg Imperial
Public Library, 1,050,000 volumes, 28,000 manuscripts.
LIBRARIES:
England: The King's Library and the British Museum.
"No monarch of England is known to have been an extensive
collector of books (in the modern acceptation of the term)
except George III., or, if the name of Charles I. should be
added, it must be in a secondary rank, and with some
uncertainty, because we have not the same evidence of his
collection of books as we have of his pictures, in the
catalogue which exists of them. A royal library had, indeed,
been established in the reign of Henry VII.; it was increased,
as noticed by Walpole, by many presents from abroad, made to
our monarchs after the restoration of learning and the
invention of printing; and naturally received accessions in
every subsequent reign, if it were only from the various
presents by which authors desired to show their respect or to
solicit patronage, as well as from the custom of making new
year's gifts, which were often books. There were also added to
it the entire libraries of Lord Lumley (including those of
Henry, Earl of Arundel, and Archbishop Cranmer), of the
celebrated Casaubon, of Sir John Morris, and the Oriental MSS.
of Sir Thomas Roe. Whilst this collection remained at St.
James's Palace, the number of books amassed in each reign
could have been easily distinguished, as they were classed and
arranged under the names of the respective sovereigns. In 1759
King George II. transferred the whole, by letters patent, to
the then newly-formed establishment of the British Museum; the
arrangement under reigns was some time after departed from,
and the several royal collections interspersed with the other
books obtained from Sir Hans Sloane, Major Edwards, and
various other sources. … George III., on his accession to
the crown, thus found the apartments which had formerly
contained the library of the Kings of England vacated by their
ancient tenants. … Sir F. A. Barnard states that 'to create
an establishment so necessary and important, and to attach it
to the royal residence, was one of the earliest objects which
engaged his majesty's attention at the commencement of his
reign;' and he adds that the library of Joseph Smith, Esq.,
the British Consul at Venice, which was purchased in 1762,
'became the foundation of the present Royal Library.' Consul
Smith's collection was already well known, from a catalogue
which had been printed at Venice in 1755, to be eminently rich
in the earliest editions of the classics, and in Italian
literature.' Its purchase was effected for about £10,000, and
it was brought direct to some apartments at the Queen's Palace
commonly called Buckingham House. Here the subsequent
collections were amassed; and here, after they had outgrown
the rooms at first appropriated to them, the King erected two
large additional libraries, one of which was a handsome
octagon. Latterly the books occupied no less than seven
apartments. … Early in the year 1823, it was made known to
the public that King George IV. had presented the Royal
Library to the British nation. … Shortly after, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer stated in the House of Commons
that it was his majesty's wish that the library should be
placed in the British Museum, but in a separate apartment from
the Museum Library."
Gentleman's Magazine, 1834,
pages 16-22.
"In the chief countries of the Continent of Europe … great
national Museums have, commonly, had their origin in the
liberality and wise foresight either of some sovereign or
other, or of some powerful minister whose mind was large
enough to combine with the cares of State a care for Learning.
In Britain, our chief public collection of literature and of
science originated simply in the public spirit of private
persons. The British Museum was founded precisely at that
period of our history when the distinctively national, or
governmental, care for the interests of literature and of
science was at its lowest, or almost its lowest, point. As
regards the monarchs, it would be hard to fix on any, since
the dawn of the Revival of Learning, who evinced less concern
for the progress and diffusion of learning than did the first
and second princes of the House of Hanover. As regards
Parliament, the tardy and languid acceptance of the boon
proffered, posthumously, by Sir Hans Sloane, constitutes just
the one exceptional act of encouragement that serves to give
saliency to the utter indifference which formed the ordinary
rule. Long before Sloane's time … there had been zealous and
repeated efforts to arouse the attention of the Government as
well to the political importance as to the educational value
of public museums. Many thinkers had already perceived that
such collections were a positive increase of public wealth and
of national greatness, as well as a powerful instrument of
popular education. It had been shewn, over and over again,
that for lack of public care precious monuments and treasures
of learning had been lost; sometimes by their removal to
far-off countries; sometimes by their utter destruction. Until
the appeal made to Parliament by the Executors of Sir Hans
Sloane, in the middle of the eighteenth century, all those
efforts had uniformly failed. But Sir Hans Sloane cannot claim
to be regarded, individually or very specially, as the Founder
of the British Museum. His last Will, indeed, gave an opportunity
for the foundation.
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Strictly speaking, he was not even the Founder of his own
Collection, as it stood in his lifetime. The Founder of the
Sloane Museum was William Courten, the last of a line of
wealthy Flemish refugees, whose history, in their adopted
country, is a series of romantic adventures. Parliament had
previously accepted the gift of the Cottonian Library, at the
hands of Sir John Cotton, third in descent from its Founder,
and its acceptance of that gift had been followed by almost
unbroken neglect, although the gift was a noble one. Sir John,
when conversing, on one occasion, with Thomas Carte, told the
historian that he had been offered £60,000 of English money,
together with a carte blanche for some honorary mark of royal
favour, on the part of Lewis XIV., for the Library which he
afterwards settled upon the British nation. It has been
estimated that Sloane expended (from first to last) upon his
various collections about £50,000; so that even from the
mercantile point of view, the Cotton family may be said to
have been larger voluntary contributors towards our eventual
National Museum than was Sir Hans Sloane himself. That point
of view, however, would be a very false, because very narrow,
one. Whether estimated by mere money value, or by a truer
standard, the third, in order of time, of the
Foundation-Collections,—that of the 'Harleian
Manuscripts,'—was a much less important acquisition for the
Nation than was the Museum of Sloane, or the Library of
Cotton; but its literary value, as all students of our history
and literature know, is, nevertheless, considerable. Its first
Collector, Robert Harley, the Minister of Queen Anne and the
first of the Harleian Earls of Oxford, is fairly entitled to
rank, after Cotton, Courten, and Sloane, among the virtual or
eventual co-founders of the British Museum. Chronologically,
then, Sir Robert Cotton, William Courten, Hans Sloane, and
Robert Harley, rank first as Founders; so long as we estimate
their relative position in accordance with the successive
steps by which the British Museum was eventually organized.
But there is another synchronism by which greater accuracy is
attainable. Although four years had elapsed between the
passing—in 1753—of 'An Act for the purchase of the Museum or
Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian Collection
of Manuscripts, and for providing one general repository for
the better reception and more convenient use of the said
Collections, and of the Cottonian Library and of the additions
thereto,' and the gift—in 1757—to the Trustees of those
already united Collections by King George II. of the Old Royal
Library of the Kings his predecessors, yet that royal
collection itself had been (in a restricted sense of the
words) a Public and National possession soon after the days of
the first real and central Founder of the present Museum, Sir
Robert Cotton. But, despite its title, that Royal Library,
also, was—in the main—the creation of subjects, not of
Sovereigns or Governments. Its virtual founder Was Henry,
prince of Wales [son of James I.]. It was acquired, out of his
privy purse, as a subject, not as a Prince. He, therefore, has
a title to be placed among the individual Collectors whose
united efforts resulted—after long intervals of time—in the
creation, eventually, of a public institution second to none,
of its kind, in the world."
E. Edwards,
Founders of the British Museum,
book 1, chapter 1.
"Montague House was purchased by the Trustees in 1754 for a
general repository, and the collections were removed to it.
… On the 15th of January, 1750, the British Museum was
opened for the inspection and use of the public. At first the
Museum was divided into three departments, viz., Printed
Books, Manuscripts, and Natural History; at the head of each
of them was placed an officer designated as 'Under Librarian.'
The increase of the collections soon rendered it necessary to
provide additional accommodation for them, Montague House
proving insufficient. The present by George III. of Egyptian
Antiquities, and the purchase of the Hamilton and Townley
Antiquities, made it moreover imperative to create an
additional department—that of Antiquities and Art—to which
were united the Prints and Drawings, as well as the Medals and
Coins, previously attached to the library of Printed Books and
Manuscripts. The acquisition of the Elgin Marbles in 1816 made
the Department of Antiquities of the highest importance, and
increased room being indispensable for the exhibition of those
marbles, a temporary shelter was prepared for them. This was
the last addition to Montague House. When, in 1823, the
library collected by George III. was presented to the nation
by George IV. it became necessary to erect a building fit to
receive this valuable and extensive collection. It was then
decided to have an entirely new edifice to contain the whole
of the Museum collection, including the recently-acquired
library. Sir R. Smirke was accordingly directed by the
Trustees to prepare plans. The eastern side of the present
structure was completed in 1828, and the Royal Library was
then placed in it. The northern, southern, and western sides
of the building were subsequently added, and in 1845 the whole
of Montague House and its additions had disappeared; while the
increasing collections had rendered it necessary to make
various additions to the original design of Sir R. Smirke,
some of them even before it had been carried out."
J. W. Jones,
British Museum: a Guide,
pages ii-iii.
"The necessity of a general enlargement of the library led to
the suggestion of many plans—some impracticable—some too
expensive—and all involving a delay which would have been
fatal to the efficiency of the Institution. … Fortunately