The Care of Books Part 46

The decoration of the panel-work begins with a representation of a bench, on which various objects are lying executed in intarsia work. Above this bench is a row of small panels, above which again is a row of large panels, each containing a subject in the finest intarsia, as for example a portrait of Duke Frederick, figures of Faith, Hope, and other virtues, a pile of books, musical instruments, armour, a parrot in a cage, etc. In the cornice above these is the word FEDERICO, and the date 1476.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 155. A scholar's room in the fifteenth century.

From a MS. in the Royal Library at Brussels.]

Opposite the window there is a small cupboard, and on the opposite side of the projection containing it there are a few shelves. These are the only receptacles for books in the room. From its small size it could have contained but little furniture, and was probably intended for the purpose traditionally ascribed to it, namely as a place of retirement for the Duke when he wished to be alone.

Another specimen of a library so arranged as to provide a peaceful retreat is afforded a century later by that of Montaigne, of which he has fortunately left a minute description.

[My library is] in the third story of a Tower, of which the Ground-room is my Chappel, the second story an Apartment with a withdrawing Room and Closet, where I often lie to be more retired. Above it is a great Wardrobe, which formerly was the most useless part of the House. I there pa.s.s away both the most of the Days of my Life, and most of the Hours of those Days. In the Night I am never there. There is within it a Cabinet handsome and neat enough, with a Fire-place very commodiously contriv'd, and Light very finely fitted.

And was I not more afraid of the Trouble than the Expence, the Trouble that frights me from all Business, I could very easily adjoyn on either side, and on the same Floor, a Gallery of an hundred paces long, and twelve broad, having found Walls already rais'd for some other Design, to the requisite height. Every place of retirement requires a Walk. My Thoughts sleep if I sit still; my Fancy does not go by itself, as when my Legs move it: and all those who study without a Book are in the same Condition.

The figure of my Study is round, and has no more flat Wall than what is taken up by my Table, and my Chairs; so that the remaining parts of the Circle present me a view of all my books at once, set up upon five degrees of Shelves round about me. It has three n.o.ble and free Prospects, and is sixteen paces[546] Diameter. I am not so continually there in Winter; for my House is built upon an Eminence, as its Name imports, and no part of it is so much expos'd to the Wind and Weather as that, which pleases me the better, for being of a painful access, and a little remote, as well upon the account of Exercise, as being also there more retir'd from the Crowd. 'Tis there that I am in my Kingdom, as we say, and there I endeavour to make myself an absolute Monarch, and so sequester this one Corner from all Society both Conjugal, Filial, and Civil[547].

The notices of libraries which I have collected have brought me to the end of the sixteenth century, by which time most of the appliances in use in the Middle Ages had been given up. I hope that I have not exhausted the patience of my readers by presenting too long a series of ill.u.s.trations extracted from ma.n.u.scripts. I love, as I look at them, to picture to myself the medieval man of letters, laboriously penning voluminous treatises in the writing room of a monastery, or in his own study, with his scanty collection of books within his reach, on shelves, or in a chest, or lying on a table. We sometimes call the ages dark in which he lived, but the mechanical ingenuity displayed in the devices by which his studies were a.s.sisted might put to shame the cabinet-makers of our own day.

As the fashion of collecting books, and of having them bound at a lavish expense, increased, it was obvious that they must be laid out so as to be seen and consulted without the danger of spoiling their costly covers.

Hence the development of the lectern-system in private houses, and the arrangement of a room such as the d.u.c.h.ess Margaret possessed at Malines.

Gradually, however, as books multiplied, and came into the possession of persons who could not afford costly bindings, lecterns were abandoned, and books were ranged on shelves against the wall, as in the public libraries which I described in the last chapter.

There is still in existence, on an upper floor in the Palazzo Barberini at Rome, a library of this description, which has probably not been altered in any way since it was fitted up by Cardinal Frances...o...b..rberini about 1630. The room is 105 ft. long by 28 ft. broad, and is admirably lighted by two windows in the south wall, and seven in the gallery. The shelves are set round three sides of the room at a short distance from the wall, so as to leave s.p.a.ce for a gallery and the stairs to it. The cases are divided into compartments by fluted Ionic columns 5 ft. high. These rest upon a flat shelf 14 in. wide, beneath which are drawers for papers and a row of folios. This part of the structure is 3 ft. high from the floor to the base of the columns. Above the columns is a cornice, part of which is utilized for books; and above this again is the gallery, where the arrangement of the shelves is a repet.i.tion of what I have described in the lower part of the room. Dwarf cases in a plainer style and of later date are set along the sides and ends of the room. Upon these are desks for the catalogue, a pair of globes, some astronomical instruments, and some sepulchral urns found at Praeneste. The older woodwork in this library has never been painted or varnished, and the whole aspect of the room is singularly old-world and delightful.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 156 Dean Boys in his Library, 1622.]

Another instance is afforded by the sketch of the library of John Boys, Dean of Canterbury, who died in 1625. It occurs on the t.i.tle-page of his works dated 1622, and I may add on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral also.

He clung to ancient fashions so far as to set his books with their fore-edge outwards, but in other respects his book-shelves are of a modern type.

I have now reached the limit which I imposed upon myself when I began this essay. But before I conclude let me say a few last words. I wish to point out that collectors and builders in the Middle Ages did not guard their ma.n.u.scripts with jealous care merely because they had paid a high price to have them written; they recognised what I may call the personal element in them; they invested them with the senses and the feelings of human beings; and bestowed them like guests whom they delighted to honour. No one who reads the _Philobiblon_ can fail to see that every page of it is pervaded by this sentiment; and this I think explains the elaborate precautions against theft; the equally elaborate care taken to arrange a library in so orderly a fashion that each book might be accessible with the least difficulty and the least delay; and the exuberant grat.i.tude with which the arrival of a new book was welcomed.

In my present work I have looked at libraries from the technical side exclusively. It would have been useless to try to combine fire and water, sentiment and fact. But let me remind my readers that we are not so far removed from the medieval standpoint as some of us perhaps would wish.

When we enter the library of Queens' College, or the older part of the University Library, at Cambridge, where there has been continuity from the fifteenth century to the present day, are we not moved by feelings such as I have tried to indicate, such in fact as moved John Leland when he saw the library at Glas...o...b..ry for the first time?

Moreover, there is another sentiment closely allied to this by which members of a College or a University are more deeply moved than others--I mean the sentiment of a.s.sociation. The most prosaic among them cannot fail to remember that the very floors were trodden by the feet of the great scholars of the past; that Erasmus may have sat at that window on that bench, and read the very book which we are ourselves about to borrow.

But in these collections the present is not forgotten; the authors of to-day are taking their places beside the authors of the past, and are being treated with the same care. On all sides we see progress: the lecterns and the stalls are still in use and keep green the memory of old fashions; while near them the plain shelving of the twentieth century bears witness to the ever-present need for more s.p.a.ce to hold the invading hordes of books that represent the literature of to-day. On the one hand, we see the past; on the other, the present; and both are animated by full, vigorous life.

FOOTNOTES:

[521] MSS. Mus. Brit., MSS. Cotton, Claudius E. 4, part 1. fol. 124. I have to thank my friend, Mr Hubert Hall, of the Public Record Office, for drawing my attention to this ill.u.s.tration.

[522] _Gesta Abbatum_, ed. Rolls series, I. p. 184. I owe this reference and its translation to the Reverend F. A. Gasquet, _Medieval Monastic Libraries_, p. 89, in _Downside Review_, 1891, Vol. X. No. 2.

[523] Henri Havard, _Dict. de l' Ameublement_, s. v. Librairie. The first chest is described in the following words: "Livres estans en la grant chambre dudit Seigneur, en ung escrin a.s.siz sur deux crampons, lequel est a la fenestre empres la cheminee de ladite chambre, et est a deux couvescles, en l'une des parties dequel coffre estoient les parties qui s'ensuivent." See also J. Labarle: _Inventaire du Mobilier de Charles V._ 4to. Paris, 1879, p. 336.

[524] Franklin, _Anc. Bibl. de Paris_, Vol. II. p. 112. A copy of this account is in the _Bibliotheque de l'a.r.s.enal_, No. 6362. This I have collated with M. Franklin's text. The most important pa.s.sage is the following: A Jacques du Parvis et Jean Grosbois, huchiers, pour leur peine d'avoir dessemble tous les bancs et deux roes qui estoient en la librairie du Roy au palais, et iceux faict venir audit Louvre, avec les lettrins et icelles roes estrecies chacune d'un pied tout autour; et tout ra.s.semble et pendu les lettrins es deux derraines estages de la tour, devers la Fauconnerie, pour mettre les livres du Roy; et lambroissie de bort d'Illande le premier d'iceux deux estages tout autour par dedans, au pris de L. francs d'or, par marche faict a eux par ledit maistre Jacques, XIV^e jour de mars 1367.

[525] A. Berty, _Topographie historique du vieux Paris_, 4to. Paris, 1866, Vol. I. pp. 143-146. He considers that the "bort d'Illande" was Dutch oak, 480 pieces of which had been given to the king by the officer called Senechal of Hainault.

[526] MSS. Mus. Brit. 14 E. V.

[527] MSS. Mus. Brit. 14 E. 1. This miniature has been reproduced by Father Gasquet in the paper quoted above.

[528] MSS. Mus. Brit., MSS. Harl. 4375, f. 151 _b_.

[529] _The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury_: ed. E. C. Thomas, London, 1888.

[530] Printed in _Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhochsten Kaiserhauses_, Band III. 4to. Wien, 1885.

[531] Lerou de Lincey, _Melanges de la Societe des Bibliophiles_, 1850, p.

231.

[532] MSS. Mus. Brit. 15 E. VI.

[533] MS. Mus. Brit. 20 C. V.

[534] Paris, Bibliotheque de l'a.r.s.enal, MS. 5193, fol. 311. Boccacio: _Cas des malheureux n.o.bles hommes et femmes_.

[535] Paris, Bibl. Nat., MSS. Francais, 50, _Le Miroir Historial_, by Vincent de Beauvais, fol. 340. Probably written in cent. XV.

[536] MSS. Mus. Brit. Add. 35321. MSS. Waddesdon, No. 12. Bequeathed by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild.

[537] MSS. Bodl. Lib. Oxf., MSS. Rawl. Liturg. e. 24, fol. 17 _b_.

[538] MSS. Bibliotheque Royale de Bruxelles, No. 9242. _Chroniques de Hainaut_, Pt. I. fol. 2, 1446.

[539] MSS. Bibl. Nat. Paris, MSS. Fran. 9198. See _Miracles de Nostre Dame_, by J. Mielot, Roxburghe Club, 1885; with introduction by G. F.

Warner, M.A.

[540] MSS. Cotton, Augustus, VI. fol. 213 _b_. There is a beautiful example of a table and desk on this plan in a MS. of _La Cite des Dames_, from the old Royal Library of France in the Bibl. Nat., MSS. Fran. 1177.

[541] MSS. Bodl. Lib. Oxf., MSS. Douce, No. 381, fol. 159. A second example occurs in the same MS., fol. 160.

[542] I have to thank my friend Sidney Colvin, M.A., for drawing my attention to this picture.

[543] See above, pp. 37, 38.

[544] MSS. Mus. Brit. 18 E. IV.

[545] _Le Debat de l'honneur entre trois Princes chevalereux_. Bibil. Roy.

Bruxelles, No. 9278, fol. 10. The MS. is from the library of the Dukes of Burgundy, and may be dated in the second third of the fifteenth century.

[546] The original words are 'seize pas de vuide.' The substantive 'pas'

must I think mean a foot, the length a foot makes when set upon the ground. The word pace, the length of which is 2 ft. 6 in. or 3 ft., is inapplicable here.

[547] _Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne._ Made English by Ch.

Cotton, Vol. III. pp. 53, 54. 8vo. London, 1741. I have to thank my friend Mr A. F. Sieveking for this reference.