It was compiled over 25 years in the Assyrian capital of Nineveh by order of King Ashurbanipal (VII century BC). It also served as a state archive.
After the death of the king, the funds were scattered among various palaces. The part of the library discovered by archaeologists consists of 25,000 clay tablets with cuneiform texts. The discovery of the library in the mid-19th century was of great importance for understanding the cultures of Mesopotamia and for deciphering cuneiform writing. 
Ashurbanipal intended to create a library that was supposed to exhaust all the knowledge accumulated by mankind. He was especially interested in the information necessary to govern the state - about how to maintain constant communication with deities, about predicting the future by the movement of the stars and the entrails of sacrificial animals. That is why the lion's share of the funds consisted of texts of conspiracies, prophecies, magical and religious rituals, and mythological tales. The bulk of the information was extracted from Sumerian and Babylonian texts by specially organized teams of scribes.
The library had a large collection of medical texts (with an emphasis on healing through witchcraft), but the rich mathematical heritage of Babylonia was inexplicably ignored. There were numerous lists of literary epic tales, in particular tablets with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the mythological translation of Enuma Elish, as well as tablets with prayers, songs, legal documents (for example, the Code of Hammurabi), economic and administrative records, letters, astronomical and historical works , political records, lists of kings and poetic texts.
The texts were written in Assyrian, Babylonian, Akkadian, and Sumerian. Many texts are presented in parallel in Sumerian and Akkadian, including encyclopedic editions and dictionaries. As a rule, one text was kept in six copies, which today greatly facilitates the work of deciphering the tablets. Today, the library of Ashurbanipal is the largest collection of texts in the Akkadian language.
The foundation of the library took place by order of the Assyrian ruler Ashurbanipal, who was distinguished by his great interest in texts and knowledge in general. Ashurbanipal's predecessors had small palace libraries, but none of them had such a passion for collecting texts. Ashurbanipal sent numerous scribes to different regions of his country to make copies of all the texts they came across. In addition, Ashurbanipal ordered copies of texts from all major temple archives, which were then sent to him in Nineveh. Sometimes, during military campaigns, Ashurbanipal managed to capture entire cuneiform libraries, which he also delivered to his palace.
The librarians of Ashurbanipal did a great job of cataloging, copying, commenting and researching library texts, as evidenced by numerous glossaries, bibliography and commentaries. Ashurbanipal himself attached great importance to organizing the library. Each tablet had his name written on it (a kind of bookplate), and the colophon contained the name of the original tablet from which the copy was made. The library had hundreds of codices with waxed pages, allowing text written on wax to be corrected or rewritten. Unlike cuneiform tablets (which are only hardened during fires), wax tablets are not durable. They have not survived, as well as the scrolls in the library - parchment and papyrus. Judging by ancient catalogs, no more than 10% of all funds collected by Ashurbanipal have survived to this day.
A huge array of cuneiform texts has survived to this day solely thanks to Ashurbanipal's passion for the written word. In many cases, the ancient monuments of Mesopotamian writing have survived only in copies made by order of this ruler. Some of the texts on display go back thousands of years (although the tablets themselves are not very ancient; under normal conditions they were rarely preserved for more than 200 years).
Ashurbanipal himself was proud of the fact that he was the only Assyrian ruler who could read and write. His personal note was found on one of the tablets:
“I studied what the wise Adapa brought me, mastered all the secret art of writing on tablets, began to understand predictions in the sky and on earth, participate in discussions of learned men, predict the future together with the most experienced interpreters of predictions from the livers of sacrificial animals. I can solve complex, difficult problems in division and multiplication, I constantly read skillfully written tablets in such a complex language as Sumerian, or such a difficult one to interpret as Akkadian, I am familiar with antediluvian stone records that are already completely incomprehensible.”
Ashurbanipal's own records (probably compiled by the best scribes) are of high literary quality.
A generation after Ashurbanipal, his capital fell to the Medes and Babylonians. The library was not looted, as usually happens in such cases, but was buried under the ruins of the palaces where it was kept.
In 1849, most of the library (which was kept in the northwestern palace on the banks of the Euphrates) was found by the British archaeologist Austin Henry Layard. Three years later, Layard's assistant, the British diplomat and traveler Hormuzd Rasam, found the second part of the library in the opposite wing of the palace. Both parts were taken to the British Museum for storage. The opening of the library allowed scientists to gain a first-hand understanding of Assyrian culture. Before this, Assyria was known only from the works of Herodotus and other historians of Hellas, and their source, in turn, was the Persians. The greatest sensation in the scientific community was the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which recounts the biblical story of the Flood.
When removing the tablets from the rubble, a careful record of where they were found was not kept. At the British Museum, both parts were placed in a common vault, so that it is now impossible to judge which tablets were found where. Scientists are still working on sorting individual fragments (“joints”), cataloging and deciphering texts. The British Museum is working with Iraqi scientists to create a library museum in Iraq that will display reproductions of the original tablets.
Library, translated from Greek – “biblio” - book, “teka” - repository, that is, “storehouse of books”.
The role of libraries in people's lives can be judged by the figurative names that have long been assigned to them. They were called temples of wisdom, the memory of humanity, repositories of the treasures of civilization.
The library is an ordinary and at the same time amazing place, because books live in this room. We are accustomed to a book, we rarely think of it as a miracle, as a treasure, and it happens that we do not always appreciate and take care of it. But think about it, until recently the book was the only means of transmitting knowledge from generation to generation. As soon as people invented writing, it became possible to collect and accumulate knowledge.
The entire history of the human mind is connected with books and libraries. This is not a calm story at all! They fought for books, burned them, lost them, found them, dug them up in the ruins of cities buried by time, saved them from enemy invasion as the most precious thing. Today's library seems to be the epitome of peace, quiet and order.
As at all times, she serves people. It is interesting that the first libraries were not just a room where books were stored: they were real libraries in the full sense of the word. There were special tablets on which the first lines of the works stored in the library were written, which helped to conveniently group and then find the required literary source.
The very first libraries appeared in Ancient Egypt. They were called "houses of papyrus" and "houses of life." They were created at palaces and temples. Egyptian pharaohs attached great importance to education. During excavations above the entrance to one of the rooms of the palace of Ramses II, archaeologists discovered the inscription: “Pharmacy for the soul.” According to the ancient Egyptians, books can be compared to a medicine that makes a person’s mind strong and ennobles his soul.
In the 19th century, archaeologists excavated the capital of the Assyrian kings, Nineveh, on the banks of the Tigris River and discovered a cuneiform library there, established by King Ashurbanipal. It was called the “House of Instructions and Advice” and was a huge collection of clay tablets, which, at the direction of the king, were taken from the temples and from the houses of noble and educated Assyrians.
The tablets remained for about twenty years in the British Museum in London. When scientists managed to decipher the cuneiform, it became clear that this was a whole library of clay books. Each such “book” consisted of “sheets” - tablets of the same size. On each tablet was the title of the book - the initial words of the first tablet, and also the number of the “sheet”. The books were placed in strict order, there were catalogs - lists indicating the names of the books and the number of lines in each tablet. It is noteworthy that this library had a thematic catalogue. All her books were divided into topics: history, law, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, legends and myths. The catalog reflected the title of the work. As well as the room and shelf where one should look for the desired sign. About 30 thousand clay books were kept there, each of which had a cuneiform stamp on it: “Palace of Ashurbanipal, King of the Universe, King of Assyria.” The Library of Nineveh is the most famous ancient library.
Ancient Greece, or Hellas, was famous for its scientists and philosophers who created schools and academies with libraries. The first public library was founded by the tyrant Clearchus in Heraclea. The largest private library was considered to be the collection of the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle. Aristotle's library in Lyca, in the Athens region, where the great ancient philosopher gave his lectures, contained tens of thousands of scrolls. After the death of the scientist, his library became part of the Museion, the Temple of the Muses. During excavations at Geherculaneum, the library of the poet Philodemus was discovered, which contained about 1860 scrolls.
The center of Egyptian culture was Alexandria, where the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled. At the beginning of the third century BC, Ptolemy I decided to turn Egypt into a center of culture and the arts and founded the famous Museion (following the example of the Athenian one). It was a huge ensemble: a university with classrooms and living quarters, an observatory, a botanical garden, a zoo and a famous library of papyrus scrolls. Ptolemy II expanded the Library of Alexandria, sending his people to all corners of the world to obtain the most valuable works.
Under Ptolemy II, the patron saint of scientists and poets, the Museion and the Library of Alexandria reached their greatest prosperity. The son of Ptolemy II, Ptolemy III, issued a decree according to which anyone arriving in the harbor was obliged to give up or sell the books he had. They were transferred to the library, and copies were returned to the owners with a note that they corresponded to the original. The library's collection consisted of 700-800 thousand texts in many languages.
In 47 BC, part of the library burned down, the other was destroyed during clashes between pagans and Christians.
Modern Library of Alexandria. Egypt.
The Library of Alexandria was rivaled by the Library of Pergamon, which was created in the second century BC and contained about 200 thousand papyrus and parchment manuscripts. The Pergamon Library was second only to the Library of Alexandria in terms of the size of its collection. Most of it consisted of medical treatises - Pergamum was considered the center of medicine. The history of the library ended in 43 BC, when Pergamum became a province of Rome, and most of the books ended up in the Library of Alexandria.
Today Pergamum is located in Turkey, and the ruins of the library are among the tourist sites.
The first Roman public library was created according to Greek models by Sesonius Pollio. Later, libraries arose in the Roman Empire, established by the emperors Augustus, Tiberius, Trajan, and Byzantine rulers. The earliest Christian libraries arose in large Episcopal churches.
In 1037, the Kiev prince Yaroslav the Wise (about 980 - 1054) founded the first library in Kievan Rus. She was in the Kiev St. Sophia Cathedral. It was the most complete collection of written monuments of Ancient Rus' - the Gospel, books of prophets, lives of saints. Important government documents were also kept here. 500 volumes - not many European libraries could boast of such a collection at that time. It is unknown where the library of Yaroslav the Wise disappeared: perhaps it perished during a great fire in 1124 or was destroyed in 1240 during the defeat of Kyiv by the troops of the Mongol Khan Batu.
One of the most mysterious libraries is the library of the first Russian Tsar Ivan the Terrible (1530 – 1584). He possessed a unique book collection, which he kept in the deep dungeons of the Kremlin. Foreigners who saw the book collection said that there were, among other things, very rare books. After the death of the king, his library became a legend, as it disappeared without a trace. The mystery of the library has haunted historians and archaeologists for centuries. To this day, the search for the library has not been successful.
Since the time when the first libraries arose, their custodians have been concerned that books do not go missing. The book sign has long served this purpose. Nowadays it is called bookplate.
The first public library in Russia was the Public Library in St. Petersburg. It was founded in 1795. It was allowed to be visited by “all decently dressed citizens” three days a week from 9 am until sunset.
The largest in Russia, and the second in the world in terms of the number of stored materials (after the US Library of Congress) is the Russian State Library in Moscow (until 1992 - Lenin Library). It contains about 40 million publications. Currently, microfiche, microfilms, transparencies, audio and video cassettes are becoming more and more widespread and included in the collection of libraries, and electronic media are also becoming more widespread.
Libraries are: state, municipal, private, educational and scientific.
There are special libraries: historical, medical, technical, pedagogical, artistic, agricultural, etc.
And there are the most ordinary libraries, which are always close to home - regional ones, where you can just go and read a few pages about something interesting or leaf through a magazine that you have no longer been able to subscribe to or buy.
And there are probably also personal (home) libraries in every family, at least those about which Conan Doyle wrote: “Let your bookshelf be poor, let it decorate your home. Close the door of the room from the inside... You have left everything low, everything vulgar behind. Here, waiting for you, your silent friends stand in rows. Look around their formation. Choose the one that is closest to your soul now. Now all that remains is to reach out to him and go with him to the land of dreams.”
Eternal companions: writers about books, reading, bibliophilia / Comp. A. Blum. - M: Book, 1983. - 223 p.
School Student's Handbook. History of world culture / Comp. F. Kapitsa.- M.: Philological. society “Slovo”, TKO “AST”, 1996.- 610 p.
Great libraries // Book world Terra – 2000- No. 2 – p.44-45
a gigantic library for those times was created. Ashurbanipal was the only literate one among all the Assyrian rulers. In addition, he turned out to be an avid bibliophile and collected the most precious of available pleasures - knowledge.Clay tablet N 11 with a fragment of the myth of Gilgamesh,which describes the story of the flood ; (located in the collection of the British Museum.)
There was a small library in the palace, but Ashurbanipal was not satisfied with it. Like a decent maniac, Ashurbanipal obtained items for his collection by any means. He sentscribes to different parts of the country to make copies of any texts that came across. In addition, Ashurbanipal ordered copies of texts from all major temple archives, which they sent to him in Nineveh. Well, robbery for a collector is sacred!
During military campaigns, Ashurbanipal combined business with pleasure: he captured entire cuneiform libraries and dragged them to his palace. This is probably why he loved to fight so much. The tsar collected his library for almost 25 years.
He loved his collection dearly and attached great importance to its organization. Each sign hadpeculiarbookplate- the name of the king.AND the name of the original from which the copy was made was written.The librarians of Ashurbanipal did not eat their bread for nothing. They did a great job of cataloging, copying, commenting and researching library texts. Numerous glossaries, bibliography and commentaries were compiled.The bulk of the books were translations from Sumerian and Babylonian texts. They were written by specialist translators.Typically, each text was kept in six copies, and often in several languages.
synonym tables
Books were written on clay and wax tablets, parchments and papyri.
The king was deservedly proud of his education. He didn't just collect books. He read them.
"I studied what the wise man brought me Adapa, I mastered the entire secret art of writing on tablets, began to understand predictions in the sky and on earth, participated in discussions of learned men, and predicted the future together with the most experienced interpreters of predictions from the livers of sacrificial animals. I can solve complex, difficult problems of division and multiplication, I constantly read skillfully written tablets in such a complex language as Sumerian, or such a difficult one to interpret as Akkadian, I am familiar with antediluvian inscriptions on stone, which are already completely incomprehensible."
(Looking at these inscriptions, I understand why the king was proud. To voluntarily read THIS, you have to be a very strong-willed person!)
The library had books about everything: Booksconspiracies, prophecies, magical and religious rituals; Myths; Medical texts; Books on healing through witchcraft; Signs withthe epic of gilgamesh and mythological translation Enuma elish ; Books with prayers, songs, legal documents (for example,laws of Hammurabi ), economic and administrative records, letters, astronomical and historical works, political records, lists of kings and poetic texts. There were books about everything in the world except mathematics. Probably all the mathematical texts were stored separately and were not found. Or they stole it when the palace was robbed. Or they died in fires... Well, there are spots in the sun. Ashurbanipal created a library that covered all the knowledge accumulated by mankind.
Text about Ishtar
A generation after Ashurbanipal, his capital fell to the Medes and Babylonians. The library was not looted. Probably not all robbers liked to read. Most of the books that were written on wax tablets, papyrus and leather simply burned. The books remained on clay tablets, which were buried under the ruins of the palaces where they were kept. Preserved25,000 clay tablets.Judging by ancient catalogs, no more than 10% of all funds collected by Ashurbanipal have reached us. The library was not small at all, even by our standards. And inVII century BC, it had no equal: 250 thousand books!!!
List of astrological omens for the Moon, and comments
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What world libraries of the past and present can be considered the largest treasuries of human thought? Over the entire existence of our civilization, there have not been so many of them - and the most famous of them have sunk into oblivion.
THE BEGINNING OF TIME
The most ancient libraries are usually called the repositories of clay tablets of the Assyro-Babylonian civilization. They are more than four and a half thousand years old. The first repository of papyrus books appeared only 12 centuries later. It became the library of Ancient Egypt, founded during the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II. Another equally famous “ancient book depository is associated with the name of Alexander the Great. The emperor founded a city in the Nile Delta and named it after himself.
Later a library was built there, which was called the Alexandria Library. It was headed by the greatest scientists: Eratosthenes, Zenodotus, Aristarchus of Samos, Callimachus, etc. By the way, it was under Callimachus that for the first time in history a catalog of existing manuscripts was created, which was later regularly replenished. Thanks to this, it became the first prototype of the modern library we are used to. According to various estimates, it contained from 100 to 700 thousand volumes.
In addition to the works of ancient Greek literature and science that formed its basis, there were books in oriental languages. Quite a few of them were translated into Greek. Thus, the interpenetration and mutual enrichment of cultures occurred. The library was visited by ancient Greek mathematicians and philosophers, in particular Euclid and Eratosthenes.
In those days, it even eclipsed one of the recognized wonders of the world - the Faros Lighthouse, located there, in Alexandria. Unfortunately, the library has not survived. Some died in fire back in 48 BC, during the capture of the city by Julius Caesar. It was finally destroyed in 646 AD, during the time of the victorious Arab caliph Omar, who captured Egypt. It is he who is credited with the words: “If these books repeat the Koran, then they are not needed, if not, then they are harmful.”
However, there is an encouraging version that the funds of the Library of Alexandria were not destroyed, but the Arabs took possession of them as victors. It is no coincidence that UNESCO has now developed a plan for the restoration of the Library of Alexandria, primarily from the period of Antiquity and early Christianity. For this purpose, surviving manuscripts from surrounding countries will be collected and copied.
WHO CREATED IVAN THE TERRIBLE LIBRARY?
The disappeared library of Ivan IV the Terrible, also known as “Liberia” (from the Latin liber - “book”), still haunts historians, researchers of antiquity and all sorts of adventurers. For several centuries it has been the source of numerous rumors and speculations. It is also interesting that although the collection of rare books is named after Ivan the Terrible, it came to Moscow long before the birth of the Tsar. On the contrary, under Grozny, a priceless treasure was lost, perhaps forever.
Before it came to Rus', the owner of the book collection was the Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI. After the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the emperor and his niece, Princess Sophia Palaiologos, fled to Rome. At the same time, the main part of the library, which included volumes in ancient Greek, Latin and Hebrew, was transported there on the ship. The library, which had been collected bit by bit over millennia, arrived in Moscow as the dowry of Sophia, who was given in marriage to the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III (grandfather of Ivan the Terrible).
In addition to books related to spiritual and church topics, scientific treatises and poems of ancient classics occupied a significant place in it. According to rumors, "Liberia" contained books on magic and witchcraft practices. Standing apart were priceless volumes that told about the history of human civilization and the origin of life on Earth.
Many researchers believe that the basis of the main book collection of Ancient Rus' was precisely part of the lost Library of Alexandria. Sources report that even under the Grand Duke of Moscow Vasily III - the son of Ivan III and Sophia Paleologus and the future father of Ivan the Terrible - all manuscripts were translated into Russian.
The same sources indicate that this was done by the learned Athonite monk Maxim the Greek (1470-1556), a famous publicist and translator of that time. He was discharged from Constantinople for a specific purpose: to translate books from languages unknown in Rus' into Church Slavonic, which he did for many years. And so that he could not tell anyone about what he had seen, he was never released from Rus' again.
Later, the royal library was constantly replenished by Ivan the Terrible - he personally bought books brought from all over the world. There is a hypothesis that the king was able to obtain the legendary book collection of Yaroslav the Wise, which was stored for several centuries in the dungeons of the St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv.
However, some experts express doubts about the scientific value of the lost library of Ivan the Terrible. Thus, Academician D.S. Likhachev, one of the world's largest experts on Ancient Rus', believed that its importance was greatly exaggerated, since “a significant part of this collection consisted of church books that Sophia Paleologus brought to Rus' from Byzantium to pray in her native language." The academician also believed that it would be more important for us to save book treasures that are perishing these days.
850 KILOMETERS OF SHELVES
One of the most famous libraries of our time is the Library of Congress in Washington. Its dimensions are truly enormous: the total length of the bookshelves is 850 km! They (as of 2003) contain over 130 million storage units (books, manuscripts, newspapers, maps, photographs, sound recordings and microfilms). The annual growth of the fund ranges from 1 to 3 million units.
This library is the largest in the world in the history of mankind. The birth of the book depository dates back to January 24, 1800, when, on the initiative of US President John Adams, Congress allocated 5 thousand dollars for its completion. It is noteworthy that the Russian library collection contains over 200 thousand books and more than 10 thousand various magazines. It houses a huge number of Russian printed publications from 1708 to 1800, as well as many works of Russian fiction of the 19th century.
The famous library of the Krasnoyarsk merchant G.V. Yudin is also located there. It includes books on history, ethnography, archeology, handwritten texts on the exploration of Siberia, all of Pushkin’s lifetime publications and even a complete collection of Russian magazines of the 18th century! The merchant sold his unique book and magazine collection to the Library of Congress in 1907.
FIFTH IN THE WORLD
Today, UNESCO considers libraries with holdings exceeding 14 million items to be large. 24 book depositories in the world meet this condition. In this honorary list, Russia is represented by six book temples - three such libraries are located in Moscow, two in St. Petersburg and one in Novosibirsk.
The foundation of the largest Russian State Library in the country was laid by the famous private collection of State Chancellor Count N.P. Rumyantsev. By decree of Nicholas I of March 23, 1828, with its library, it came under the jurisdiction of the state. In 1831, it was opened as a public institution in St. Petersburg. And after 30 years, the museum was transported from St. Petersburg to Moscow and began to work in accordance with the “Regulations on the Moscow Public Museum and the Rumyantsev Museum” approved by Alexander II.
STORAGE OF SECRET KNOWLEDGE
The world's oldest Vatican Apostolic Library is also of great interest. It was founded in the 15th century by Pope Nicholas V. Today its holdings include about 1,600,000 printed books, 150,000 manuscripts, 8,300 incunabula, more than 100,000 engravings and geographical maps, 300,000 coins and medals. The Vatican Library also houses a rich collection of Renaissance manuscripts.
It is not without reason that it is considered a repository of the secret knowledge of mankind. The library has rooms where neither journalists, nor historians, nor specialists in other sciences are allowed, although the huge number of ancient and medieval manuscripts makes it the most attractive for historians of all times.
Alexander VOROBYEV
The Library of Alexandria recently reopened. The project to resurrect it has been implemented for about 20 years and all this time was sponsored by UNESCO and the governments of many countries. The library occupies an 11-story building. But the main goal of the project is the creation of an international electronic library. We can hope that very soon people from different parts of the planet will be able to visit the oldest library in the world using the Internet.
The Pergamon Library was created by King Eumenes II in the 2nd century. BC. The building was located in the central square of the city. The books were housed in four large halls. In the center of the main hall, on a marble pedestal, stood a statue of Athena, one and a half human height. The niches for the scrolls in the book depository were lined with cedar, as it was believed that it protected the manuscripts from insects. The staff included scribes, translators, and there was a catalogue.
The Pergamon Library was second only to the Library of Alexandria in terms of the size of its collection, which amounted to 200 thousand copies. Its largest part was made up of medical treatises Pergamon was considered the center of medicine. Once the Pergamon Library bought the works of Aristotle, giving for them exactly as much gold as the manuscripts weighed. Fearing rivalry, Egyptian rulers forbade the export of papyrus to Pergamon. Then the Pergamians invented their own writing material. It was parchment - the skin of kids and lambs, beaten, wiped and smoothed in a special way. Scrolls were not glued together from parchment, but notebooks were folded and sewn into books. It was much more expensive than papyrus, but stronger; in addition, parchment could be made everywhere, but papyrus could only be made in Egypt. Therefore, in the Middle Ages, when exports from Egypt stopped, all of Europe switched to parchment. But in ancient times papyrus reigned supreme, and the Library of Pergamon was never able to catch up with the Library of Alexandria.
The history of the Pergamon Library ended in 43 BC. , when Pergamum was already a province of Rome. Mark Antony donated most of the library to the Egyptian queen Cleopatra, and the scrolls ended up in the Alexandria Library. Today Pergamon (Peregamon) is located in Turkey and the ruins of the library are among the tourist sites.
In the 1st century BC. troops of the Roman Empire capture Greece and a number of Hellenistic states. During military campaigns, books were taken as trophies. Dozens of book copying workshops are opening in Rome; In bookstores you can buy works by authors from all countries of the ancient world. The first rich private libraries appeared. Julius Caesar, who captured Alexandria, decided to take the famous Library of Alexandria to Rome, where he was going to open a public library on its basis. However, in 44 BC. Caesar was killed, and the books prepared for shipment to Rome were burned. Caesar's plan was implemented in 39 BC. orator, politician, historian and writer, friend of Horace and Virgil Asinius Pollio. He opened a public library in Rome, on the Aventine Hill, in the Temple of Liberty. It was the world's first public library. The Romans greeted the innovation with delight, poets composed hymns in honor of the library and its founder, “who made the works of the human mind into the public domain.” In the following years, libraries in Rome were founded by Augustus, Trajan, and other emperors.
By the 4th century. AD There were at least 30 public libraries in Rome. They were located in covered galleries of large marble buildings, in palaces, in temples or near temples, as well as in thermal baths and public baths. Library architecture and the doctrine of organizing the work of libraries are developing. In accordance with the ideas of the famous architect Vitruvius, their windows faced east, so that in the morning there would be a lot of light in the halls; the Romans preferred the morning hours for studies. In addition, this was a better way to protect papyrus scrolls from dampness that penetrated the windows during frequent southern and western winds. The halls, rectangular or semicircular, were decorated with statues of gods, busts and portraits of great people. But all the decorations were placed in deep niches, the floor was made of dark marble, the ceilings were without gilding so that nothing would irritate the reader’s eye. Wardrobes stood along the walls or in the middle of the hall. The shelves in the cabinets were divided by vertical partitions into slots for manuscripts, which were stored horizontally in a systematic manner.
Readers of ancient Roman libraries - poets, scientists, officials, noble and wealthy citizens - could take manuscripts home. Libraries had catalogs. Compilation manuals were compiled: “On the acquisition and selection of books”, “Which books are worthy of acquisition”. In Rome there were also special libraries containing manuscripts on one branch of knowledge (for example, grammatical treatises).