Sainte-Geneviève Library
Sorbonne Nouvelle University Sainte-Geneviève Library | |
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Sorbonne Nouvelle University | |
Established | 1838 |
Collection | |
Items collected | two million documents, including 18,300 periodical titles |
Other information | |
Website | www |
Sainte-Geneviève Library (French: Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève) is a
It is based on the collection of the
History
The Monastic library
The
By the 9th century, the basilica had been transformed into an Abbey church, and a large monastery had grown up around it, including a scriptorium for the creation and copying of texts. The first record of the existence of the Sainte-Genevieve library dates from 831, and mentions the donation of three texts to the Abbey. The texts created or copied included works of history and literature, as well as theology, However, in the course of the 9th century, the Vikings raided Paris three times. While the settlement on the Ile-de-la-Cité was protected by the river, the abbey of Saint-Genevieve was sacked, and the books lost or carried away.[4]
The library was gradually reassembled. During the reign of
Around about 1108, the theology school of the Abbey of Saint Genevieve, was joined together with the School of Notre Dame Cathedral and the school of the Royal Palace to form the future University of Paris.[5]
By the early 13th century the university library was already famous throughout Europe. The early holdings of the library from this time are listed in a 13th-century inventory (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16203, fol. 71v). The 226 titles and authors included in the 13th century inventory include bibles, commentaries and ecclesiastical history; but also books on philosophy, law, science and literature. It was open not only to students, but also to French and foreign scholars. The manuscripts were of considerable value: each manuscript was marked with a warning notice that any person who stole or damaged a manuscript would be punished by anathema, or excommunication from the church.[6]
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First page of The Book of Genesis, Bible of Manerius (c. 1185), (BSG Ms.8 f7)
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Illuminated manuscript of the Coronation of King Louis IV of France (1275–1280) (Grandes Chroniques de France Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève,Ms. 782)
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The birth of KingPhilip-Augustus(1275–1280) (Grandes Chroniques de France, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Ms. 782, folio 280)
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Illumination in a manuscript of Livy, Ab urbe conduit, showing the foundation of Rome. (c. 1370) The manuscript belonged to king Charles V of France. Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Ms. 777, fol. 7r.
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New Testament from the Abbey Sainte-Geneviève depicting the entry of Christ into Jerusalem Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (circa 1525–1530) (Ms. 106 f1r (Entrée à Jérusalem)
15th Century to the 18th century
Shortly after
The library was brought back to life beginning in 1619, during the reign of
During the late 18th century, the library acquired copies of the major works of the
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TheAstronomical Clock(17th century)
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The celestial globe, from the cabinet of curiosities (17th century)
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Ceremonial Arawak baton from Cabinet of Curiosities (17th–18th century)
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Bust of the naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon by Jean-Antoine Houdon (18th century)
The Revolution and its aftermath
Following the
In 1796, the name of the library was changed; it became the National Library of the Pantheon. named for the neighboring Abbey church, then under construction, which had also been confiscated and renamed. While the collection of books remained intact, the famous cabinet of Curiosities was broken up and some its collection was dispersed to the National Library and Museum of Natural History. However, the Library did manage to retain a large number of objects, including the celebrated astronomical clock, the oldest example of its kind, acquired by the library in about 1695, and a variety of terrestrial and celestial globes, as well as objects illustrating cultures around the world, which are on display in the library today. The library also displays a notable collection of eighty-six busts of French scientists, some made by the leading French sculptors of the 17th and 18th centuries, including busts by Antoine Coysevox, Jean-Antoine Houdon, and François Girardon.[12]
The early 19th century
The library continued to flourish in the early 19th century, under the French Directory and then the Empire of Napoleon. After the death of Pingré the library was directed by a Pierre-Claude Francois Daunou. He traveled to Rome, following Napoleon's army, and arranged for the transfer to Paris of books confiscated from the papal collections. The library also received collections of books confiscated from nobles who had fled abroad during the Revolution. At the time of the fall of Napoleon, the library had a collection of one hundred ten thousand books and manuscripts.[13]
The fall of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy brought new problems for the library. The collection of the library had more than doubled in size, and needed more space. However, the library shared the 18th-century building of the old Abbey Sainte-Genevieve with a prestigious school, originally known as the central school of the Pantheon, then as the Lycée Napoleon, and then and today as the
The Labrouste building
After the expulsion of the library from its old site, the government decided to build a new building for the collection. It was the first library in Paris to be constructed specifically as a library. The site chosen was close to the old library. It had originally been occupied by the medieval Collége Montaigu, where Erasmus and Ignatius of Loyola, John Calvin and François Rabelais had been students. After the Revolution that building had been transformed into a hospital and then a military prison, and was largely in ruins. It was to be demolished to make way for the new library.[14]
The architect chosen for the project was
The new library showed the influence of the prevailing academic beaux-arts style and the influence of Florence and Rome, but in other ways it was strikingly original. The base and facade resembled Roman buildings, with simple arched windows and discreet bands of sculpture. The facade, exactly the length of the reading room, and the large windows, expressed the function of the building. The primary decorative element of the facade is a list of names of famous scholars.[16][17]
Unlike earlier buildings, the major decorative element of the building was not on the facade, but in the architecture of the reading room. the slender iron columns and the lace-like cast iron arches under the roof were not concealed; combined with the large windows they gave an immediate impression of space and lightness. It was a major step in the creation of modern architecture.,[18][15]
The large (278 by 69 feet) two-storied structure filling a wide, shallow site is deceptively simple in plan: the lower floor is occupied by stacks to the left, rare-book storage and office space to the right, with a central vestibule and stairway leading to the reading room which fills the entire upper story. The vestibule was designed to symbolize the beginning of a journey in search of knowledge, the visitors arrives through a space decorated with murals of gardens and forest and passes busts of famous French scholars and scientists.[19] The monumental staircase from the ground floor to the reading room is placed so it doesn't take any space from the reading room. Labrouste also designed building so that a majority of the books (sixty thousand) were in the reading room, easily accessible, with a minority (forty thousand) in the reserves. The iron structure of this reading room—a spine of sixteen slender, cast-iron Ionic columns dividing the space into twin aisles and supporting openwork iron arches that carry barrel vaults of plaster reinforced by iron mesh— is revered by Modernists for its introduction of high technology into a monumental building.[20]
Labrouste went on to design the Salle Labrouste, the main reading room in the old
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The entry hall
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Reading room in use
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The reading room in 1859
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Ground floor plan (entry hall in center and a reserves)
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Original reading room plan
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Hall and reading room section)
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Façade
Later years – expansion and modification
Between 1851 and 1930, the library's collection grew from one hundred thousand volumes to over a million, requiring a series of reconstructions and modifications. In 1892, a hoist was installed to lift books from the reserves to the reading room; it is now on display. A more serious change was made between 1928 and 1934. The number of seats in the reading room was doubled to seven hundred fifty. To accomplish this, the seating plan of the reading room was drastically changed; the original plan had long tables which stretched the entire length of the room, divided by a central spine of bookshelves, making the room seem even longer. In the new plan, the central bookshelves were removed and tables crossed the room, increasing the seating but reducing the linear effect.[22] As the collection continued to grow, a new annex in the modernist style was added in 1954. The later computerization of the catalog created space for an additional one hundred seats. The building was classified as a national historic monument in 1992. Today the library is classified as a national library, a university library and a public library.[23]
Notable users
Notable users of the library included the paleontologist
Directors and principal keepers
- Jean Baptiste LeChevalier(1806–1836)
- Charles Kohler ( ? – 1917)
- Charles Mortet (1917–1922)
- Paul Roux-Fouillet (1977–1987)
- Geneviève Boisard (1987–1997)
- Nathalie Jullian (1997–2006)
- Yves Peyré (2006–2015)
- François Michaud (2015 – )
In popular culture
The library's interior was used as the Film Academy Library for scenes of Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning 3D film Hugo, based on Brian Selznick's Caldecott Medal-winning novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, where the title character and Isabelle go to find more information about a film which Hugo did not remember its name (A Trip to the Moon), later both finding out to their surprise that its creator is Georges Méliès, Isabelle's godfather.
References
- ^ "Accueil". www.bsg.univ-paris3.fr. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
- ^ "Accueil". www.bsg.univ-paris3.fr. Retrieved 27 July 2023.
- ^ Peyré, Yves, La bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève À travers les siècles (2011), pg. 12
- ^ Peyré (2011), pg. 14
- ^ a b Peyré (2011), pg. 16
- ^ Peyré (2011), pg. 18
- ^ Peyré (2011) pp. 24–25.
- ^ Peyré (2011) pp. 28–29
- ^ Peyré (2011) pp. 30–31.
- ^ a b Peyré (2011) pp. 32–33.
- ^ Peyré (2011), pg. 44
- ^ Peyré (2011), pg. 44–50
- ^ a b Peyré (2011), pg. 52–55
- ^ Peyré (2011), p. 58
- ^ a b Zanten, David Van. Designing Paris: the Architecture of Duban, Labrouste, Duc, and Vaudoyer. MIT Press, 1987.
- ^ Henri Labrouste et la bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Annie Le Saux, BBF 2002 – Paris, t. 47, n° 2
- ^ Peyré (2011), p. 62-66
- ^ "Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light". moma.org. 10 March 2013. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
- ^ Peyré (2011), p. 70-71
- ^ Marvin Trachtenberg and Isabelle Hyman, Architecture: from Prehistory to Post-Modernism, p 478
- ^ Meyer, Adolf Bernhard (1905). Studies of the museums and kindred institutions of New York City, Albany, Buffalo, and Chicago, with notes on some European Institutions. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. pp. 594ff. Retrieved 5 July 2014.
- ^ Peyré (2011), p. 78
- ^ Peyré (2011), p. 80
- ^ Peyré (2011), pp. 90–91
- OCLC 754709.
Books cited
Peyré, Yves (2011). La bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève À travers les siècles (in French). Paris: Gallimard.
Further reading
- "New Library". Gleason's Pictorial. 2. Boston, Mass. 1852.
External links
- Official website (in French)
- https://archive.org/details/bibliothequesaintegenevieve
- Henri Labrouste – Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (In French, Standard YouTube License)