Through the ambition of its fellows, legal entitlement and generous bequests, the Old Library, Trinity College Dublin has amassed a world-famous collection, writes Charles Benson in celebration of its tercentenary.
The Old Library and the collections housed in it are deservedly world famous. They are at the heart of a library which after four centuries of acquisition now contains 4.25 million printed volumes, over half a million printed maps and hundreds of thousands of manuscripts. The tercentenary of the laying of the foundation stone of the Old Library will be celebrated on 23 May 2012.
The building, largely funded by a succession of government grants, was designed by Thomas Burgh, the Surveyor-General for Ireland, and was originally a single-chamber library over an arcade with pavilions at the east and west ends. The arcade was divided by a longitudinal wall which separated the public areas of the College on the north from the Fellows’ Garden on the south. The entrance in the west pavilion led to a grand staircase which gave access to the Librarian’s Room, the Long Room and to the Manuscripts Room in the east pavilion. The ground floor of the east pavilion had a separate entrance and was used for teaching purposes.
Muirne Lydon reveals the original brilliance of Murillo’s Prodigal Son as degraded varnish and old restorations are painstakingly removed from the 17th-century series at the National Gallery of Ireland
Using a selection of germane quotations Rolf Loeber recalls his mentor, the late Maurice Craig; their literary exchange taking the form of a tete-a-tete.
Cosmopolitan yet connected to local issues, Mervyn Wingfield, 7th Viscount Powerscourt played a prominent role in promoting Ireland’s cultural institutions at a pivotal time in their early history, writes Philip McEvansoneya