Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/25



CHAPTER I

EARLY LIBRARIES—SITES—ALCOVES AND BOOK-STORES—PLAN, ELEVATION, AND FACADE—DECORATION PRECAUTIONS AGAINST FIRE.

libraries erected during the couple of centuries following the invention of printing differ considerably from the modern type of library building. Then the readers were few in number, and the student was ensconced in a snug alcove, founded on the traditions of the scriptorium. Suites of rooms were built with the idea that they would be used more as exhibition galleries than as storerooms for books meant for study. Many examples of this type of building are to be seen on the Continent. Amongst them may be mentioned the Biblioteca Laurenziana, at Florence, designed In Michael Angelo about 1515; the most beautiful building of the Libreria Vecchia, at Venice, built by Sansovino in 1571; and the present home of the Vatican Library, Rome, built in 1588 by