Biblioteca Malatestiana, Cesena

Books were intellectual resources, but the collection of books was also a resource for the projection of power by princes, who were increasingly well educated by humanists and fashioned themselves as protectors and promoters of learning.  Commissioned by Malatesta Novello (1418-65), ruler of Cesena and younger brother of the controversial warlord Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, and designed by Matteo Nuti of Fano, Europe first civic library was opened to the public in 1454.  Although built for the commune, it blends contemporary religious architecture with humanistic principles derived from Leon Battista Alberti, and is modelled on an ancient basilica.  From the beginning, books were chained and consulted in their place, as was common in this period and as is visible in other surviving Renaissance libraries, such as the Laurenziana in Florence (designed by Michelangelo), and as would have been the case in Duke Humfrey’s and Corpus Christi College libraries here in Oxford.

Credit: Oren Margolis (July 2018).