The Great Libraries – from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Citation

Noon, P. (2003), "The Great Libraries – from Antiquity to the Renaissance", Library Review, Vol. 52 No. 6, pp. 282-283. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530310482105

I am sending you an attractive coffee table book said the reviews editor. He was right – it is a coffee table book, but if you intend to buy this volume make sure you invest in a larger or at least reinforced coffee table before you do. It is huge and extremely heavy, with 562 very large format pages on heavy grade glossy paper.

The book is in fact two books and they are quite different. The first half of the book (Book 1) is a general history of the development of libraries from the very earliest times in Mesopotamia through to the Renaissance. Book 2 is a series of cameos of “great” libraries from that period.

Although Book 1 at times does lapse into a list of libraries through the ages it also offers a great deal more, presumably to set the context in which these early libraries operated. So in the sections on libraries in Mesopotamia and Egypt there are digressions on the Royal Scribes, the development of papyrus and of hieroglyphics; in the section on Hellenistic libraries there are sections on the Sophists and the book in Greek life. Later we are treated to trips into monastic education, Byzantine publishing and the development of printing. Sadly there is not much on library buildings. In the 1,100 years of the Byzantine Empire the author concludes that the architectural evidence is “non‐existent”.

On the other hand, as you would expect there is a great deal on the Library at Alexandria including the author’s own theory on its demise. Rejecting the common theory that it was the depredations of Caesar’s army that sealed its fate, he prefers the argument that it was “the fate that sooner or later befalls every library when through changing circumstances it ceases to fulfil its original purpose, gradually becomes run down and depleted and finally succumbs to the inexorable laws of nature, progressive decay leading to extinction”. A battle we all face!

It is remarkable how many parallels with present issues this history throws up: there are museums and libraries designed together which will please. Resource, the pecia system in Renaissance Italy sounds like a precursor to selling electronic books by the chapter and problems for libraries between the fourth and fourteenth century included a steep rise in book prices and exorbitant rates of pay demanded by the copyists, the book supplier of their day! And for those fond of some of the grand titles that mere librarians now find for themselves, how about one from Rome: “Procurator of the Libraries of the God Trajan”.

If Book 1 is a rather large textbook on ancient library history, Book 2 is more of a conventional coffee table book. It features lavish illustrations of both interiors and material from 14 selected great libraries. The libraries are an eclectic and presumably very personal selection by the author and they are great for a variety of reasons. Some like the Library of the Oecumenical Patriarch are small in size, housed as he says on two floors but the collection is precious; some, like the Vatican Library are great because of the opulence of their architecture; some because of their place in library history. In this category would come the Bodleian and the Biblioteca Malatestiana, “the oldest library of the Renaissance”, “retaining its original furniture and fittings and most of its original contents”.

As two books it suffers a certain split personality, as the two parts are very different in both appearance and content. Nonetheless the research in both is meticulous and praised in both the Foreword and the Preface. It is also clearly a work of enormous dedication and passion. If you are keen scholar of library history you will no doubt appreciate this – provided you have a very strong coffee table.