The Care of Books Part 43

The gallery is approached by a staircase contrived in the thickness of the south-west pier. It is 5 ft. wide, and fitted with bookcases ranged against the wall in the same manner as those below, but they are loftier, and of plainer design. The bal.u.s.trade, a molded cornice of wood, supported on pilasters of the same material, which recall those separating the compartments below, and the great stone piers, enriched with a broad band of fruit, flowers, and other ornaments set in a sunk panel, are striking features of this gallery.

The material used throughout for the fittings is oak, which fortunately has never been painted, and has a.s.sumed a mellow tone through age which produces a singularly beautiful effect.

If we now return to Cambridge, we shall find that the influence of Wren can easily be traced in all the library fittings put up in the course of the 18th century. The first work of this kind undertaken was the provision of additional fittings to the library of Emmanuel College[510] between 1702 and 1707. The tall cases, set up at right angles to the walls in 1679, were moved forward, and shelves in continuation of them were placed against the side-walls. The same influence is more distinctly seen in the library of S. Catharine's Hall[511], which was fitted up, according to tradition, at the expense of Thomas Sherlock, D.D., probably while Master, an office which he held from 1714 to 1719. The room is 63 ft. 6 in. long by 22 ft. 10 in. wide; and it is divided by part.i.tions into a central portion, about 39 ft. long, and a narrow room at each end, 12 ft. long.

Each of these latter is lighted by windows in the north and south walls; the former has windows in the south wall only. The central portion is divided into three compartments by bookcases which line the walls, and project from them at right angles; in the two smaller rooms the cases only line the walls, the s.p.a.ce being too narrow for any other treatment.

When the building of the new Senate House had set free the room called the Regent House, in which the University had been in the habit of meeting from very early times, it was fitted up, between 1731 and 1734, as part of the University Library[512]. Wren's example was followed as far as the nature of the room would permit. Wherever a blank wall could be found, it was lined with shelves, and the cases placed at right angles to the side-walls were continued over the narrow s.p.a.ces left between their ends and the windows. One of these cases, from the south side of the room, is here shewn (fig. 131). The shelves under the windows were added subsequently. A similar arrangement was adopted for the east room in 1787-90.

At Clare College, at about the same date, the new library over the kitchen was fitted up with shelves placed against the walls. These fittings are excellent specimens, ornamented with fluted Ionic pilasters, an elaborate cornice, and pediments above the doors. It is worth noting, as evidence of the slowness with which new fas.h.i.+ons are accepted, that the antiquary William Cole, writing in 1742, calls this library "a very large well-proportion'd Room a la moderne, w^th ye Books rang'd all round it & not in Cla.s.ses as in most of y^e rest of y^e Libraries in other Colleges[513]."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 131. Bookcase in the north room of the University Library, Cambridge, designed by James Ess.e.x, 1731-1734.]

The fas.h.i.+on of which I have been tracing the progress in England had been accepted during the same period in France, where some beautiful specimens of it may still be seen. I presume that the example was set by the wealthy convents, most of which had been rebuilt, at least in part, in the then fas.h.i.+onable cla.s.sical style, during the seventeenth century[514]. At Rheims a library fitted up by the Benedictines of Saint Remi in 1784 now does duty as the chapel of the Hotel-Dieu. Fluted Corinthian columns supporting an elaborate cornice divide the walls into compartments, in which the books are ranged on open shelves. The room is 120 ft. long, by 31 ft. broad, with four windows on each side. With this may be compared the public library at Alencon, the fittings of which are said to have been brought from the abbey of the Val Dieu near Mortain at the Revolution. The room is 70 ft. long by 25 ft. wide. Against the walls are 26 compartments or presses, alternately open and closed. Each of these terminates in an ogee arch enriched with scrolls and a central s.h.i.+eld. The whole series is surmounted by a cornice divided by console brackets, between which are s.h.i.+elds, probably intended originally to carry the names of the subjects of the books.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 132. Interior of the Library of the Jesuits at Rheims, now the _Lingerie de l'Hopital General_.]

Lastly, I must mention the libraries of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette at Versailles. The walls are lined with a double row of presses, each closed by gla.s.s doors. The lower row is about four feet high, the upper row about ten feet high. The wood-work is painted white, and enriched with wreaths of leaves in ormolu. As a general rule the books are hidden from view by curtains of pleated silk.

I mentioned in a previous chapter[515] that additional s.p.a.ce was provided for the library in a French monastery by raising the roof of an existing building, putting in dormer windows, and converting the triangular s.p.a.ce so gained into a library by placing in it bookcases of a convenient height, and connecting them together by a ceiling. I have fortunately discovered one such library still in existence at Rheims. It belonged originally to the Jesuits, who had constructed it about 1678, and when the Order was expelled from France in 1764, and their House became the workhouse (_hopital general_) of the town, it was fortunately made use of as the _lingerie_, or linen-room, without any material change. Even the table has been preserved. The view here presented of the interior (fig.

132) may serve to give a general idea, not merely of this library, but of others of the same cla.s.s. The decoration of the ceiling is coa.r.s.e but effective. On the coved portion of it, within the s.h.i.+elds, are written the subjects of the books on the shelves beneath. I made a list of these and have printed them on the margin of my ground-plan (fig. 133). This plan also shews the arrangement of the bookcases. They are placed at a distance of five feet from the walls, and are returned to meet each window, thus forming convenient bays for private study. The s.p.a.ce between the bookcases and the wall was used as a store-room[516].

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 133. Ground-plan of the Library of the Jesuits at Rheims.

The Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve, at Paris, offered originally a splendid example of a library arranged in this manner. It consisted of two galleries, at right angles to each other, fitted up in the same style as the library at Rheims. The longest of these galleries was 147 ft. long by 24 ft. wide. The guidebooks prepared for the use of visitors to Paris in the middle of the 18th century dwell with enthusiasm on the convenience and beauty of this room. The books were protected by wire-work; between each pair of cases was a bust of a Roman emperor or an ancient philosopher; at the crossing of the two galleries was a dome which seemed to be supported on a palm-tree in plaster-work at each corner, out of the foliage of which peered the heads of cherubs; while the convenience of readers was consulted by the liberality with which the library was thrown open on three days in every week, and furnished with tables, chairs, a ladder to reach the upper shelves, and a pair of globes[517]. This library was begun in 1675, and placed, like that at Rheims, directly under the roof. The second gallery, which is shorter than the first, was added in 1726. It was not disturbed at the Revolution, nor under the Empire, though the rest of the abbey-buildings became the Lycee Napoleon. After the Restoration, when this school became the College Henri IV., the presence of the library was found to be inconvenient, and in 1850 it was removed to a new building close to the Pantheon. The galleries are now used as a dormitory for the school-boys, but the dome, with some of its decorations, still survives.

Another example of this arrangement, which seems to have been peculiarly French, is afforded by the library of Saint Germain-des-Pres, the gradual extension of which I have already described[518]. The books were contained in oak presses set against the walls. Above them was a series of portraits representing the most important personages in the Order of S. Benedict.

This library was open to the public daily from 9 to 11 a.m. and from 3 to 5 p.m.[519]

I will conclude this chapter with a few words on the library of the most famous of all European monasteries, namely Monte Ca.s.sino, the foundation of which was undoubtedly laid by S. Benedict himself. I confess that I had hoped to find there a library which might either by its position or its fittings recall the early days of monasticism; but unfortunately the piety of the Benedictine Order has induced them to rebuild their parent house in a cla.s.sical style, and to obliterate nearly every trace of the primitive building. The library, to which I was obligingly conducted by the Prior, is 60 ft. long by 30 ft. broad, with two large windows at the end opposite to the door. The side-walls are lined with bookcases divided by columns into four compartments on each side, after the fas.h.i.+on of Cardinal Mazarin's library. These columns support a heavy cornice with handsome ornaments. A band of woodwork divides the cases into an upper and lower range, but there is no trace of a desk. I could not learn the date at which these fittings had been constructed, but from their style I should a.s.sign them to the middle of the seventeenth century[520].

FOOTNOTES:

[494] See above, p. 196.

[495] See above, p. 224.

[496] See above, p. 233.

[497] For the history of the Escrial, see Ford, _Handbook for Spain_, Ed.

1855, pp. 749-763, and _Descripcion ... del Escorial_, Fra de los Santos, fol. Madrid, 1657, with the English translation by G. Thompson, 4to.

London, 1760.

[498] I have to thank the librarian, Monsignore Ceriani, for kindly allowing this photograph to be taken for my use.

[499] _Gli Ist.i.tuti Scientifici etc. di Milano._ 8vo. Milan, 1880, p. 123, note.

[500] Boscha, _De Origine et statu Bibl. Ambros._ p. 19; _ap._ Graevius, _Thes. Ant. et Hist. Italiae_, Vol. IX. part 6; see also the Bull of Paul V, dated 7 July 1608, approving the foundation and rehearsing the statutes, in _Magnum Bullarium Romanum_, 4to. Turin, 1867, Vol. xi. p.

511.

[501] For the history of the Bibliotheque Mazarine see Franklin, _Anc.

Bibl. de Paris_, Vol. III. pp. 37-160.

[502] Franklin, _Anc. Bibl. de Paris_, Vol. III. pp. 55-6.

[503] The minute of the conservators of the library authorising this change is printed by Franklin, _ut supra_, p. 117.

[504] Macray, _Annals_, ut supra, p. 37.

[505] Macray, _ut supra_, p. 80.

[506] Elmes. _Life of Sir C. Wren_, pp. 180-184. _Parentalia_, p. 261.

[507] The history of this library has been fully narrated in the _Arch.

Hist._, ut supra, Vol. II. pp. 531-551. Wren's Memoir quoted below has been collated with the original in the library of All Souls' College, Oxford, where his designs are also preserved.

[508] This plan has been reduced from one on a larger scale kindly sent to me by my friend Mr F. C. Penrose, architect to the Cathedral.

[509] I have to thank the Dean and Chapter for leave to study these Accounts, and to have a photograph taken of the library.

[510] _Arch. Hist._ Vol. II. p. 710. Vol. III. p. 468.

[511] _ib._ Vol. III. p. 468.

[512] _ib._ Vol. III. pp. 74, 470.

[513] _Arch. Hist._ Vol. I. p. 113.

[514] See the set of views of French Religious Houses called _Le Monasticon Gallicanum_, 4to. Paris, 1882. The plates were drawn by Dom Germain 1645-1694.

[515] See above, pp. 106, 114.

[516] Jadart, _Les Anciennes Bibliotheques de Reims_, 8vo. Reims, 1891, p.

14.

[517] Franklin, _Anc. Bibl. de Paris_, Vol. I. pp. 71-99. He gives a view of the interior of the library from a print dated 1773.

[518] See above, p. 114.

[519] Franklin, _ut supra_, I. pp. 107-134.

[520] I visited Monte Ca.s.sino 13 April, 1898.

CHAPTER IX.