ABSTRACT
The emergence of the library, as distinct from the museum or picture gallery, did not occur directly as a result of the invention of the printing press but as a consequence of the
growth in rational thought. Most commentators note that the library as we know it first occurred in the Renaissance with the Biblioteca Malatestiana in Casena and Michel-
angelo’s Biblioteca Laurenziana in Florence. The first from around 1450 and the second a century or so later were libraries rather than bookstores. Earlier notable libraries such as that at Wells Cathedral and the Ptolemy Library
at Alexandria (which contained perhaps half a million scrolls) were depositories of written material with only a casual distribution of reading space for scholars.
