The World’s Libraries — beautiful buildings for all to enjoy
Libraries have been around since antiquity. Their emergence marks the end of prehistory and the dawn of history.
The Sumerians stored records of commercial transactions and inventories in Cuneiform script on clay tablets, some dating as far back as 2600 BCE.
Over 30,000 tablets were found in Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria, containing stories about creation, and omens about the moon and sun. And we thought tablets were a relatively recent innovation!
Written books first appeared in Classical Greece in the 5th century BCE. By the end of the 6th century BCE, the great libraries of the world were in Alexandria, Egypt, and Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire.
While most Greek libraries were private, the Romans built public libraries, with successive emperors striving to outshine their forebears.
Gaius Asinius Pollio, lieutenant under Julius Caesar, built the first public library in Rome—the Anla Libertatis. Works of Greek and Latin were kept separately, and he adorned it with statues of the most celebrated heroes.
Emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Vespasian, and Trajan would build more libraries along the same lines. Trajan’s Ulpian Library was 50 ft high, reaching to 70 ft at the peak.
And so began a tradition of building libraries as grand monuments to learning.
Many libraries are beautiful works of art in and of themselves.
Join us as we travel inside some of the world’s greatest libraries.
The often palatial libraries of the past are wonderful environments to read, study, or just gaze in awe at such magnificent interiors.
Can modern libraries continue to provide enjoyable spaces for study and pleasure? You decide.