…is to have a personal library so grand that after you’re gone, the entire thing is preserved, as-is. One prominent example is the personal library of Samuel Pepys, which now resides at Magdalene College in Cambridge. Not only are all of Pepys’s personal books–over 3000 of them–collected there, but they are kept in the arrangement that Pepys devised, in the bookcases he had built for them. I would love to visit this library someday, which is open to the public (though not right now as the building is undergoing preservation and restoration work).
There’s a new notable personal library that has been preserved, and this one, at more than 32,000 volumes, exceeds the Pepys one tenfold. It’s the famous personal library of Umberto Eco, which now resides at the University of Bologna.
The collection was donated to the Italian state by Eco’s heirs in 2020, on condition that it be placed on permanent loan to the University of Bologna.
Before the move, the library was surveyed shelf by shelf in Milan, with the position of every volume, thematic groupings and connections between authors and disciplines carefully documented, so that the new premises in Bologna could reproduce Eco’s original arrangement exactly, down to which books he kept lying flat and which stood upright.
That arrangement follows the “good neighbour” principle developed by art historian Aby Warburg, which Eco adopted for his own shelving: placing seemingly unrelated texts side by side so that unexpected connections between them could emerge.
The library’s themed rooms, covering subjects from mediaeval philosophy to popular fiction, comic books and occultism, allow visitors to trace the same interdisciplinary connections that shaped Eco’s own research and writing.
Eco’s library is one of the most famous personal libraries of the last century, even now, ten years after Eco’s death. Nicholas Basbanes wrote about Eco in his amazing book Patience and Fortitude: A Roving Chronicle of Book People, Book Places, and Book Culture:
Before taking up residence in a sprawling suite of rooms overlooking the historical Castello Sforzesco fortress in a picturesque district of Milan, Umberto Eco had twice been forced to give up comfortable quarters elsewhere because he owned too many books. “The floors were about to collapse,” the world-renowned semiotician, medievalist, philosopher, essayist, educator, cultural critic, and author of three best-selling novels said as we walked about the beautifully appointed apartment where he and his wife, Renate, are surrounded by thirty-thousand volumes, and where the concept of a personal library takes on an almost bewildering aspect. The floors in the the stone-faced building Eco now calls home, once an elegant hotel, were constructed to bear considerable weight loads; the ceilings, moreover, are high, allowing the placement of shelves that can accommodate eleven tiers of books. To help him reach the highest levels, Eco had several ladders mounted on steel tracks that move effortlessly from room to room. His own writing is done at the rear of the apartment in a secluded cove surrounded by another complex of bookcases, arranged almost like a fantastical maze. Eco insisted that I note the depth of the shelves, which had been designed to his specifications. A quick examination indicated about nine inches of space, just enough room for one book per slot. “No more guessing,” he said, arching his eyebrows for emphasis. “Never again will I have two books deep. Never. Now I can see every title I have at a glance. Everything is in a single line.”
Well, that’s another dream, isn’t it!
Apparently there exists a full-length documentary about Eco and his library. I should watch it.
