SMC 29
Libraries in the Manuscript Age
Edited by Nuria de Castilla, François Déroche, and Michael Friedrich
The case studies presented in this volume help illuminate the rationale for the founding of libraries in an age when books were handwritten, thus contributing to the comparative history of libraries. They focus on examples ranging from the seventh to the seventeenth century emanating from the Muslim World, East Asia, Byzantium and Western Europe. Accumulation and preservation are the key motivations for the development of libraries. Rulers, scholars and men of religion were clearly dedicated to collecting books and sought to protect these fragile objects against the various hazards that threatened their survival. Many of these treasured books are long gone, but there remain hosts of evidence enabling one to reconstruct the collections to which they belonged, found in ancient buildings, literary accounts, archival documentation and, most crucially, catalogues. With such material at hand or, in some cases, the manuscripts of a certain library which have come down to us, it is possible to reflect on the nature of these libraries of the past, the interests of their owners, and their role in the intellectual history of the manuscript age.
FrontmatterI
ContentsV
Towards a Comparative Study of Libraries in the Manuscript Age
1Nuria de Castilla, François Déroche und Michael Friedrich
THE ISLAMIC WORLD
The Isalmic World
17John Seyller
Princes’s Readings: The Poetry in Mūlāy Zaydān’s Collection at El Escorial39
Nuria de Castilla
Collecting Books in Eighteenth-Century Morocco: The Bannānī Library in Fez63
François Déroche and Lbachir Tahali
EAST AND SOUTH ASIA
Two Libraries of the Tang Capital 107
Jean-Pierre Drège
Institutional Libraries in Japan’s Classic Court Age (Heian Period, 794–1185) 123
Ivo Smits
Palm-leaf Manuscript Libraries in Southern India Around the Thirteenth Century: The Sarasvatī Library in Chidambaram 135
Gérard Colas
BYZANTIUM
How Many Books Does It Take to Make an Emperor’s Library? Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus and a Chapter of History of the Manuscript Book 161
Luciano Bossina
Byzantine Libraries: The Public and the Private 183
Inmaculada Pérez Martín183
WESTERN EUROPE
How Private Libraries Contributed to the Transmission of Texts211
Donatella Nebbiai
Libraries and Teaching: Comments on Western Universities in the Middle Ages225
Jacques Verger
An Ideal Library for an Ideal King? Showcasing the Collection, Organization and Function of the Royal Louvre Library in Late Medieval Paris243
Vanina Kopp
Index of Manuscripts 265