Laurentian Library

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Aerial view. The Laurentian Library can be identified in the long row of windows above the cloister extending to the left of the picture. The taller structure with two rows of windows immediately to its right is the vestibule.
Aerial view. The Laurentian Library can be identified in the long row of windows above the cloister extending to the left of the picture. The taller structure with two rows of windows immediately to its right is the vestibule.

The Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Mediceo Laurenziana) in Florence, Italy is famous as a repository of nearly 11,000 manuscripts and early printed books.[1] Built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze under the patronage of the Medici pope, Clement VII, the Library is renowned for the architecture planned and built by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1525).[1]

Lit by windows in bays that are articulated by pilasters corresponding to the beams of the ceiling, with a tall constricted vestibule (executed to Michelangelo's design in 1559 by Bartolomeo Ammanati[1]) that is filled with a stair that flows down from the library itself, the Library is often instanced as a prototype of Mannerism in architecture.[2]

Beneath the current wooden floor of the library in the Reading Room is a series of 15 square red and white terra cotta floor panels. These panels, measuring 8 foot-6-inches (2.6 m) on a side, when viewed in sequence demonstrate basic principles of geometry. The tiles are believed to have been arranged to have been exposed based on a furniture layout that was later changed to increase the number of reading desks in the room.[3][4]

In 1571, Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany, opened the still-incomplete Library to scholars.[1] Notable additions to the collection were made by its most famous librarian, Angelo Maria Bandini, who was appointed in 1757 and oversaw its printed catalogues. The Library conserves the Nahuatl Florentine Codex, the major source of pre-Conquest Aztec life. Among other well-known manuscripts in the Laurentian Library are the sixth-century Syriac Rabula Gospels; the Codex Amiatinus, which contains the earliest surviving manuscript of the Latin Vulgate Bible; the Squarcialupi Codex, an important early musical manuscript; and the fragmentary Erinna papyrus containing poems of the friend of Sappho.

  1. ^ a b c d (2007) Medicean-Laurentian Library. Encyclopædia Britannica. 
  2. ^ Vestibule of the Laurentian Library. Olga's Gallery. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
  3. ^ Ben Nicholson, Jay Kappraff, and Saori Hisano, "The Hidden Pavement Designs of the Laurentian Library", pp. 87-98 in Nexus II: Architecture and Mathematics, ed. Kim Williams, Fucecchio (Florence): Edizioni dell'Erba, 1998.
  4. ^ Rosin, Paul L.; Martin, Ralph R. (2003). "Hidden Inscriptions in the Laurentian Library". Proceedings of Int. Soc. Arts, Mathematics, and Architecture (ISAMA): 37-44. Retrieved on 2007-02-16. 

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