Morgan Library & Museum
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GREAT EUROPEAN LIBRARIES: Photographs by Massimo Listri
GREAT EUROPEAN
LIBRARIES: Photographs by Massimo Listri
The
handsomely restored Morgan-Library looks splendid. But its Curators seem to be
trying to Up-stage this Magnificence with a stunning new show of
The Great Baroque & Rococo Libraries
of Europe.
These
are large-scale photos by Massimo Listri,
almost all of them looking down the length of such great collections of Rare-Books & Manuscripts as the Library of the Monastery of St. Gallen,
Dublin’s Trinity College Library, The Laurentian Library & that of
the Hospital of the Innocents, both
in Florence, the Malatestiana Library
in Cesena, the Strahov Library in
Prague, & the Vatican Library in
Rome, which played such an important role in Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons!
Listri
has printed these photos so that they are almost five-feet-wide &
four-feet-high! You can almost believe you are standing in the
magnificent-entrances of these great Bibliothèques.
Your
Arts-Reporter had the good fortune to photograph most of these Libraries
himself in the 1950s, long before Museum-Directors went crazy about the Public
taking pictures in such Historic-Collections. My photos are actually fairly
good—considering the equipment & film I could then afford—but they are No
Match for the Magnificence of Listri’s Iconic-Images.
Although
you cannot make photos now—even without
flash—in most of these remarkable rooms, you can certainly inspect such
priceless-manuscripts as the Book of
Kells, in the Trinity College Library.
When
you are next in Firenze, when you visit the Laurentian
Library, remember that it was designed by no less a genius than Michelangelo!
For
that matter, if you are a Valid-Researcher—if
you make arrangements & appointments in advance—you can actually have
access to very rare books & papers in almost all of these great Libraries.
No Ball-Point-Pens, Please!
But
you do not have to journey to Prague
or to Switzerland’s St. Gallen to
study Ancient-Manuscripts & Incunabula: You can do that on Madison
Avenue at the Morgan Library! Give them a Call…
Glenn Loney