tion, with an elliptically-vaulted
ceiling, along the base of which are a series of acute-angled arched
spaces containing windows that throw an admirable light on the
apartment, which is whitewashed most brilliantly. The books are ranged
all round the room on open shelves, with a communication to those of the
upper row by a pensile gallery that surrounds the whole periphery. At
the extremity of the room is a white marble statue, by Le Gros, of
Cardinal Casanata, the founder, elevated with remarkably good effect on
a pedestal of dark-colored Brazil-wood, very highly polished, and
surmounted by a splendid frontispiece, supported on two pair of fluted
Corinthian columns, all of the same material. The door of the room at
the entrance is also surmounted by a frontispiece and columns of
Brazil-wood, similar to the preceding. The librarian, a Dominican friar,
dressed in the habit of his order, and seated in an easy-chair in the
middle of the room at his desk of office, attends there continually, and
is exceedingly kind and attentive to the applications of strangers who
wish to read books in the library, though his good intentions are of
little avail, from the want of a proper catalogue."

8. _Laurentian Library, Florence._--This institution was commenced by
Cosmo de Medici, the father of a line of princes whose name and age are
almost synonymous with the restoration of learning. Naturally fond of
literature, and anxious to save from destruction the precious remains of
classical antiquity, he laid injunctions on all his friends and
correspondents, as well as on the missionaries who travelled into remote
countries, to search for and procure ancient manuscripts in every
language and on every subject. He availed himself of the services of all
the learned men of his time; and the situation of the Eastern empire,
then daily falling into ruins by the repeated attacks of the Turks,
afforded him an opportunity of obtaining many inestimable works in the
Hebrew, Greek, Chaldaic, Arabic, and Indian languages. From these
beginnings arose the celebrated library of the Medici, which, after
having been the constant object of the solicitude of its founder, was
after his death further enriched by the attention of his descendants,
and particularly of his grandson Lorenzo; and after various vicissitudes
of fortune, and frequent and considerable additions, has been preserved
to the present day--the noblest monument which its princely founders
have