Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque by Gabriel Naudé
"Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque" by Gabriel Naudé is a treatise on librarianship written in the mid-17th century. It sets out how to found, expand, and organize a comprehensive, public-minded library, privileging breadth, method, and utility over display. Addressed to a powerful patron, it offers practical guidance on selection, classification, languages, manuscripts, and acquisition, while arguing for the inclusion of controversial and minor works. Its aim is a large, universal collection that
serves both a learned owner and the wider public. The opening of this treatise begins with a 19th-century editor’s preface praising Naudé’s extraordinary erudition and public spirit, recounting his work for major patrons, his role in opening the Mazarine to the public, the Fronde’s destructive dispersal, and his continued labors. Naudé’s own “To the Reader” explains that the text arose from a dispute and is published to guide others, with apologies for any faults. He dedicates the discourse to President de Mesmes, claims the novelty of offering concrete rules for choosing, obtaining, and arranging books, and urges the patron to perfect an already fine library for lasting fame. Early chapters argue why one should build great libraries (glory, preservation of learning, public benefit, and personal delight), how to learn to do so (consult experts, study and copy catalogs of notable libraries), and why quantity matters for a public, “universal” collection. He then defines quality: secure core authors across all disciplines in originals and good translations; include commentaries, focused monographs, refutations, innovators, first treatments of topics, “curious” subjects, heretical works (with caution), great collected corpora, and practical tools like dictionaries and commonplace books; value moderns alongside ancients and do not disdain small volumes or medieval scholars. On manuscripts, he prefers substantial unpublished works over mere variants, while acknowledging the worth of autographs. The start of his acquisition advice stresses conserving what one has, gathering ephemera, making one’s passion known to attract gifts (with Richard de Bury as model), and spending less on bindings so more books can be bought. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Naudé, Gabriel, 1600-1653 |
|---|---|
| Author of introduction, etc. | Bonneau, Alcide, 1836-1904 |
| LoC No. | 03008552 |
| Title | Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque |
| Original Publication | Paris: Isidore Liseux, 1876. |
| Credits | Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Polona digital library) |
| Language | French |
| LoC Class | Z: Bibliography, Library science |
| Subject | Library science -- Early works to 1800 |
| Subject | Book collecting -- Early works to 1800 |
| Category | Text |
| EBook-No. | 77822 |
| Release Date | Jan 31, 2026 |
| Copyright Status | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 226 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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