Page:Library Construction, Architecture, Fittings, and Furniture.djvu/270

246 marble, the whole forming a facsimile of the arcade of the first storey of the Cancellaria Palace in Rome. The inner wall of this arcaded promenade is of granite, and is pierced with two rows of windows. The floor is of red brick edged with marble, and along the wall at intervals are oak benches, so that in the hot weather readers may use the court as an open-air reading-room. In the middle of the court is a fountain, with MacMonnie's bronze statue of a bacchante in its centre. Above the arcade the walls of the court are built of brick and granite, and are pierced with windows. At the top is a closed arcade around three sides of the building, the windows of which light a corridor nine feet in width.

To return to the staircase: the first floor plan (Fig. 113) will show that it leads to a corridor or hall, with a small lobby at either end. The walls of this corridor are decorated by M. Puvis de Chavannes, the subject being "The Muses welcoming the Genius of Enlightenment." The painter has been paid 250,000 francs for this work, and the effect is very fine. The large reading-room, " Bates Hall," is entered from the corridor by a small vestibule in its centre. It is a magnificent room, 218 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 50 feet high; a view of its interior is given in Fig. 114. The ceiling is in barrel arches, resting upon piers of brown sandstone. It is deeply panelled, every other panel containing a rosette. The ends of the hall are semicircular, and are screened off. That to the right of the plan is used as a public