Library
The Library of some 50,000 volumes is housed on three floors of the Palazzo Lanfredini and is claimed to be the largest lending library of English books in continental Europe. It is intended to illustrate British and Italian culture. There are substantial holdings in literature, history, music and history of art, as well as smaller sections devoted to philosophy, religion, social sciences and language. Over the years the it has received donations of books from many individuals, including Harold Acton, Bernard Berenson, John Buchan, Irene Cooper Willis (the Vernon Lee collection), Henry Furst, Victor Gollancz, Dorothy Nevile Lees (the Edward Gordon Craig collection), Henry Newbolt, Osbert Sitwell, R.S. Spranger.
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Famous quotes containing the word library:
“Our civilization has decided ... that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men.... When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. They are of two kinds: the library of published material, books, pamphlets, periodicals, and the archive of unpublished papers and documents.”
—Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989)
“Readers transform a library from a mausoleum into many theaters.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)