Breathtaking Libraries Around the World

January 6, 2009 by uphaa

Everyone has some kind of place that makes them feel transported to a magical realm. For some people it’s castles with their noble history and crumbling towers. For others it’s abandoned factories, ivy choked, a sense of foreboding around every corner.
There has always been something about libraries.
Row after row, shelf after shelf, there is nothing more magical than a beautiful old library.

El Escorial Library, San Lorenzo, Spain

Apart from its great beauty, the library of the Escorial was also renowned for the size and quality of its collection of codices and incunabula. The collection suffered badly in 1671, when a great fire destroyed nearly 4,000 codices, including 2,000 Arabic manuscripts.

But the library still has an extremely rich collection, which includes Arab and Hebrew manuscripts, and the personal library of Felipe II. Alfonso X’s Cantigas de Santa María, the Book of Hours of the Catholic monarchs, Santa Teresa’s manuscripts and diary, the gold-scrolled Aureus Codex (1039), and an 11th century Commentary on the Apocalypse by Beato de Liébana are just a few of the manuscripts

Austrian National Library, Vienna, Austria.jpg

The first libraries were composed for the most part, of unpublished records, a particular type of library called archives. Archaeological findings from the ancient city-states of Sumer have revealed temple rooms full of clay tablets in cuneiform script. These archives were made up almost completely of the records of commercial transactions or inventories, with only a few documents touching theological matters, historical records or legends. Things were much the same in the government and temple records on papyrus of Ancient Egypt.
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Bad Schussenried Bibliothekssaal, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

Biblioteca Geral University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

George Peabody Library, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

The earliest discovered private archives were kept at Ugarit; besides correspondence and inventories, texts of myths may have been standardized practice-texts for teaching new scribes. There is also evidence of libraries at Nippur about 1900 B.C. and those at Nineveh about 700 B.C. showing a library classification system
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Klementium Library, Prague, Czech Republic

Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Admont, Austria

Melk Monastery Library, Melk, Austria

Pierpont Morgan Library, NY, NY, USA

Real Gabinete Portugues De Leitura Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

This library was built in 1887, and contains over 350,000 volumes of books in Portuguese, including a copy of “Os Lusidias” from 1572. They also have a bunch of books and documents featured from the emperor’s court to celebrate the bicentennial of the Portuguese court’s arrival in Rio. The library’s naturally lit with a spectacular stained glass skylight, and is three stories high.

Riggs Library, Georgetown University, USA

Sansovino Library, Rome, Italy

Strahov Philosophical Hall

Strahov Theological Hall – Original Baroque Cabinet

The library in the Strahov Monastery in Prague contains many valuable old prints. They are kept in the Theological Hall and the Philosophical Hall, and also in depositories. The Theological Hall was built as the first one, in the 17th century. There are about 18 000 theological prints. The ceiling is decorated with a large fresco painting and there are valuable globes placed there.

Suzzallo Library, Seattle, Washington, USA

Trinity College LIbrary, AKA, The Long Room, Dublin, Ireland

The Book of Kells is the most famous of the volumes in the Trinity College Library.This book,sometimes known as the Book of Columba,is an illuminated manuscript in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament together with various prefatory texts and tables. It was transcribed by Celtic monks ca. 800.

Vatican Library, Vatican City, Rome

The Vatican Library, is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries in the world and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts. Formally established in 1475, though in fact much older, it has 75,000 codices from throughout history.From July 2007 the library has been temporarily closed to the public for rebuilding, which is expected to be completed by September 2010.

Waldsassen Abbey Library, Bavaria, Germany