7 May 2017 / leggypeggy

Books, science and globes—all in one place

architecture, books, globes, library, National Library, Paris, science, travel

Australia is mostly there on Coronelli’s terrestrial globe

Two of the four towers that surround a one-hectare garden. I’m at the other end with my back to the other two towers

Our plane landed in Paris early Thursday morning and we were determined to stay awake as long as we could in order to set a new time routine. It seemed to be a challenge. We’d flown over eight time zones and were faced with the prospect of a cool and wet day in Paris. Luckily our daughter, Libby, presented us with a list of rainy-day activities to keep us occupied while she went to work.

Most listings were for museums we hadn’t seen before, but one destination offered the greatest temptation—the National Library of France.

Australia has a wonderful national library with regular exhibitions, so we dumped our bags, had a quick shower and some food, and headed out to explore part of the French equivalent.

Known officially as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the library is composed of seven separate sites and we went to the largest, the François-Mitterrand Library, which opened in 1996.

Transport display

Science experiment

It was fantastic to walk around the library, but the big bonus was the free exhibitions on display. The first to catch our attention was the Science for All 1850–1900. It covers the array of scientific subjects being studied during the last half of the 19th century.

The exhibit is pitched at high school age, so our French was good enough to make out most of the explanations. We got a kick out the drawing showing an experiment to see how electric shocks affected the body. The guinea pig was a woman, but all the spectators were men. Or perhaps she was in charge.

This exhibit continues until 27 August.

But two large globes were the most unexpected and rewarding exhibit we saw, and one that neither of us had ever heard of.

Poor John with globe

South America

Venetian cosmographer Vincenzo Coronelli designed the globes in Paris between 1681 and 1683. Jean-Baptiste Corneille and Jean-Baptise Franquelin were two of the most important artists to illustrate them. One depicts the celestial sky with all the constellations known at the birth of Louis XIV. The other is terrestrial and gives a complete cartography of the world at the time (California is shown as an island).

The Cardinal of Estrées offered both pieces to King Louis XIV at the end of the 17th century.

Measuring measure 3.8 metres in diameter and weighing about 2 tons each, the two spheres are the most monumental pieces in the library’s collection. They have been in the collection since the 18th century, but were rarely shown until they went on permanent display in 2006.

We had the luxury of walking round and round both globes, but the lighting was low, which meant I couldn’t photograph all the angles. In fact, we initially thought they were copies of the originals but, no, we were looking at pieces created more than 330 years ago.

Reading spaces in corridor of French National Library

More about the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
The library itself is an unusual and impressive structure. It consists of four towers, with each representing an open book. The towers are connected by outdoor platforms, and surround a one-hectare garden. Architect Dominique Perrault designed the complex. He was selected at the end of an international competition organised in 1989.

If you’re a numbers person here are some of the stats. Each tower is 80 metres tall with 22 floors. There are 60,000 square metres of platforms, 57,000 square metres of book stacks, and 54,000 metres of reading rooms. The library holds 14 million documents or 400 linear kilometres of stacks.

Admission is free (except for a couple of special exhibits).