The Laurentian Library, Florence, Michelangelo, 1571, was built to house the manuscripts belonging to the Medici family. The vestibule, with its cascade of steps leading up to the library, forms a prestigious entrance.
Although the building was not originally erected to house a collection of books, it is remarkable that a library was even conceived for such a prominent and representative building in the city’s innermost bastion of power. The building’s appearance follows typical classical patterns, with stout doric columns on the ground floor and slender, richly decorated ionic columns on the upper story, characterizing the library as a public building. Sansovino followed Alberti’s recommendations, orienting the library eastwards. Like in the Laurentian Library, the main room is an elongated hall free of columns. The room is decorated with a series of scholarly iconographic paintings: personifications of music, wisdom and fame on the roof and a cycle of philosophers’ portraits around the walls. In 1603, the learned Cardinal Federico Borromeo of Milan, who was a patron of Jan Brueghel the Elder – the so-called “Flower” Brueghel –, commissioned the building of a library to house his collection of 30,000 books and 15,000 manuscripts from all over the world. The library was named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan. The entrance to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana opens onto the Piazza San Sepolcro with a projecting entrance al antica that announces its presence to the urban surroundings. The two-story reading room, the Sala Federiciana, is covered by a long barrel-vaulted ceiling with two semi-circular Diocletian windows at the ends for illumination. For Alberti,6 the barrel vault was itself a mark of distinction as the temples of Antiquity were, according to the Renaissance architect, roofed over by barrel vaults. Federico, well-versed as he was, would have been aware of this. However, what is most exceptional about this building is its open shelving in which the books and manuscripts are stored. They appear to cover, indeed to constitute, the entire surfaces of the wall. A gallery running around the perimeter provides easier access to the upper bookshelves. The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is probably the first library to be equipped with shelving of this kind. From this point on, all of the fundamental elements that constitute a library had been developed: a long, column-free space, open shelves and galleries. These elements were then further refined over the course of the Baroque era. The galleries in particular developed into elements that defined the space, and shelves transitioned from being items of furniture into an integral part of the walls.
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Lelio Buzzi and Francesco Maria Richini, 1618. Cardinal Federico Borromeo commissioned the building of a library to house his extensive collection of books and manuscripts. The projecting entrance building announces the building to its surroundings. On the interior the open shelves act as walls.
ON THE TYPOLOGY OF THE LIBRARY 25