Bibliothèque Mazarine

The Bibliothèque Mazarine, or Mazarin Library, is located within the Palais de l'institut de France, or the Palace of the Institute of France, at 23 quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement, on the Left Bank of the Seine facing the Pont des Arts and the Louvre. Originally created by Cardinal Mazarin as his personal library in the 17th century, it today has one of the richest collections of rare books and manuscripts in France, and is the oldest public library in the country.

The founder of the library, Cardinal Jules Raymond Mazarin (1602-1661), was born Giulio Ramondo Mazzarino in Pescina in the Kingdom of Naples, into a noble but poor family. He went into the church, studied at the Jesuit College in Rome, though he declined to join their order. He went into the Papal service, where he became known for his diplomatic, political and military skills, and was assigned as a nuncio to the French Court from 1634 to 1636. His talents brought him to the elder Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of Louis XIII, who made him a member of the council of State of the King. When he came from Rome to Paris, he brought with him an impressive library of five thousand books which he had kept in his palace on mont Quirinal in Rome.

With the death of Louis XIII in 1643, he became the new Prime Minister, with the support of the Queen, Anne of Austria. He immediately began constructing a palace for himself on rue de Richelieu in Paris, with an enormous chamber fifty-eight meters long designed especially to house his library. Visitors, including Frederick III, the King of Denmark, came from around Europe to see his library, and to model their own royal libraries after his. Between 1642 and 1653, Mazarin's librarian, Gabriel Naudé, traveled to Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England and Holand, buying entire libraries for Mazarin's collection, making it the largest library in Europe at the time, with forty thousand volumes.

The library nearly came to an end in January and February 1652 with the outbreak of the Fronde, an uprising by several powerful nobles against the authority of Mazarin. Mazarin and the young King were forced to flee Paris. The palace was looted and thousands of books were burned, lost or sold. Fortunately Naudé succeeded in hiding the most valuable volumes in his apartment in the Abbey of Saint-Genevieve. When Mazarin was finally able to return to Paris and to power in 1653, Naudé was able to get back many of the books which had been sold or stolen.

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