On Thursday May 19th our group had the opportunity to tour Thysius' Library. This library is significant for a few reasons, a couple being that it was the first public library in the Netherlands and that this library represents a specific literary time, the 17th century. I found it very interesting that Thysius had requested to share his library with the public after his death and that he even set aside money for the construction of the library and expansion of his collection. This library was carefully planned out and has been taken care of for a very long time. I can only imagine what Thysius would think about his library still being open today and that his books are still spreading knowledge to students.
One of the books in this library that stood out to me the most was the German Bible from the 1400s. This Bible not only showed the changes that were made in book's structure as mass produced books became more common, it also gave insight to the beginning of publishing. It was interesting to see how this Bible differs from books we see today, how there was no title page and new paragraphs had to be notated by hand after printing. It was also interesting to hear from our guide about the cultural significance of this Bible. Although this Bible was printed before The Reformation it was printed in German text instead of Latin, the language of the Catholic Church. Our guide told us that this was because people wanted the Bible to be printed in their own language so that they could read it, so publishers printed to fit what the consumers wanted even though it went against the Catholic Church. Another interesting aspect about this Bible is that it contained many hand painted illustrations to accompany popular Bible stories. This was so that people who could not read could still follow along by looking at the illustrations. Overall, I found it very interesting to see that even in the 1400s people were doing what they could to produce items that fit what consumers wanted or needed.
The library was really interesting and i enjoyed the tour. It was astounding to me that the collection was never broken up and that the library continued to operate as a public institution.
ReplyDeleteI was also amazed by how many different kinds of books were in the library. They had books on religion, language, math, science, etc. it's amazing they had all those books in such great condition.
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