Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress .. . tish crown, numbered 329 volumes at the time of Henry contrast with these early royal efforts stood that of Corvinus, king of Hun-gary, whose library numbered 50,000 volumes, mostly manuscripts, in imperial collection was burned by the Turks in 1540. About this timethe nucleus o
Triumphs and wonders of the 19th century, the true mirror of a phenomenal era, a volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress .. . tish crown, numbered 329 volumes at the time of Henry contrast with these early royal efforts stood that of Corvinus, king of Hun-gary, whose library numbered 50,000 volumes, mostly manuscripts, in imperial collection was burned by the Turks in 1540. About this timethe nucleus of the modern Laurentian Library of Florence was formed. In 1556, the Bibliotheque Rationale, or royal library of France, at Paris,was endowed by the king with power to demand a copy of every book printedin France. This power became the basis of the copyright tax, now univer-sally levied by civilized nations, and which has been the means of greatly en-riching all government libraries. In 1556 the royal library of France couldboast of but 2000 volumes. In 1789 it contained 200,000 volumes, the largestnumber of any library then existing. At the end of the nineteenth centuryit still retains the distinction of being the most extensive library in the world,containing approximately 3,000,000 162 TRIUMPHS AND WONDERS OF THE XIXth CENTURY In Italy the libraries, though venerable and very rich in rare collections ofmanuscripts, arc not noted for the number of books which represent modernliterature. The most noted library is the Biblioteca Vaticana, or library ofthe Vatican. It traces a vague history back to the fifth century, but its realfoundation was in 1455. The number of volumes and manuscripts on itsshelves is approximately 300,000. In Spain and Portugal are national libraries in their respective capitals,Madrid and Lisbon. The national library of Spain contains some 560,000volumes and manuscripts, while that of Lisbon contains over 200,000. Bel-gium and Holland are rich i
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