Month: January 2013

Machiavelli reads

At the end of the fifteenth century, to exercise his memory among the books he knew best, Niccolo Machiavelli preferred to read in his study at night-the time when he found it easiest to enjoy those qualities which for him most defined the relationship of a reader and his books: intimacy and leisured thought. “When evening comes,” he wrote, “I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, for which I was born. There I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives for their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the course of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexations, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass into their world.”

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

Euthymia

A study lends its owner, its privileged reader, what Seneca called euthymia, a Greek word which Seneca explained means “well-being of the soul,” and which he translated as “tranquillitas.”201 Every study ultimately aspires to euthymia. Euthymia, memory without distraction, the intimacy of a reading time-a secret period in the communal day-that is what we seek in a private
reading space.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

The reader’s talismans

In my study I also require certain talismans that have washed onto my desk over the years, which I distractedly finger while I think of the next words to write. Renaissance scholars recommended keeping different objects in the study: musical and astronomical instruments to lend variety and harmony to the space, natural curiosities such as strangely shaped stones and coloured
shells, and portraits of Saint Jerome, patron saint of readers. I follow their recommendation in part. Among the objects on my desk are a horse-shaped soapstone from Congonhas do Campo, a bone carved into a skull from Budapest, a pebble from the Sibyl’s Cave near Cumae. If my library chronicles my life story, my study holds my identity.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

Pope Clement VII and Michelangelo correspond over the Laurentian Library

The correspondence between him and Michelangelo, from the beginning of the building of the library to its completion, bears witness to his detailed preoccupation. For three full
years, from 1523 to 1526, Pope Clement in Rome and Michelangelo in Florence exchanged letters three or four times a week. In letter after letter, Clement suggested to Michelangelo-though papal suggestions carried the weight of orders-all manner of arrangements and dispositions: that the Latintexts be separated from the Greek, that rare books be kept in small individual cabinets, that the foundations of the building be reinforced, that the ceiling be vaulted to help prevent fires. With
nagging concern, he insisted on knowing everything: how many desks Michelangelo was planning for the reading room, how many books could be kept on each desk, where Michelangelo intended to obtain the walnut for the tables and by what process the wood was to be treated. He offered opinions on everything, from the design of the doors to the importance of the lighting, on where the best travertine could be found to make lime and how many coats of stucco should be applied to the walls. Most of the time, Michelangelo responded readily and diplomatically, sometimes accepting these suggestions and sometimes ignoring them completely.”

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

Every librarian is an architect

“Every librarian is, up to a certain point, an architect,” observed Michel Melot, director of the Centre Pompidou Library in Paris. “He builds up his collection as an ensemble through which the reader must find a path, discover his own self, and live ……

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

Upper and lower case stones

The architect who eventually drew the library’s plans (fortunately for me) lives in the village. She insisted that traditional methods be used to clean the wall and rebuild the space, and she contracted masons knowledgable in the handling of the local stone, tuffeau, which is soft as sandstone and the colour of butter. It was an extraordinary sight to see these men work row by row, placing stone next to stone with the ability of skilled typographers in an old-fashioned printing shop. The image came to mind because in local parlance the large stones are known as upper case (majuscules) and the small ones as lower case (minuscules), and during the building of the library it seemed utterly appropriate that these inheritors of the bricklayers of Babel should mix stones and letters in their labours. `Passe-moi une majuscule!” they would call to one another, while my books waited silently in their boxes for the day of resurrection.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

Big Brother can find out what you read

Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read. In the aftermath of ii September 2001, the Congress of the United States passed a law, Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act, allowing federal agents to obtain records of books borrowed at any public library or bought at any private bookstore. “Unlike traditional search warrants, this new power does not require officers
to have evidence of any crime, nor provide evidence to a court that their target is suspected of one. Nor are library staff allowed to tell targeted individuals that they are being investigated.”156 Under such requirements, a number of libraries in the United States, kowtowing to the authorities, reconsidered the purchase of various titles

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

The first executive summary

Though a library such as that of Ashurbanipal was the visible expression of earthly power, no single person, however royal, could hope to read through it all. To read every book and to digest all the information, the king recruited other eyes and other hands to scan the tablets and summarize their findings, so that in reading these digests he might be able to boast that he was familiar with the library’s entire contents. Scholars extracted the meat from the texts and then, “like pelicans,” regurgitated it for the benefit of others.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

The library is the result of choice

Every library is by definition the result of choice, and necessarily limited in its scope.
And every choice excludes another, the choice not made. The act of reading parallels endlessly the act of censorship.

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

The right to a public library

“What is the best gift which can be given to a community?” asked the most famous of these benefactors, Andrew Carnegie, in 18go. “A free library occupies the first place,” he declared in answer to his own question.”‘ Not everyone was of his opinion. In Britain, for instance, the truism that “a public library is essential for the welfare of a community” was not officially proclaimed until 185o, when the MP for Dumfries, William Ewart, forced a bill through Parliament establishing the right of every town to have a free public library.”‘ As late as 1832, Thomas Carlyle was angrily asking, “Why is there not a Majesty’s library in every county town? There is a Majesty’s jail and gallows in every one!”

The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel