Fig. 51. Elevation of book-desk in Library of Queens' College, Cambridge. [309]
It should be carefully noted, when studying this plan, that the distance between each pair of windows is not more than 2 feet, and that the end of the desk covers the whole of this space. If this fact be borne in mind when examining libraries that are now fitted up in a different way, it becomes possible to detect what the original method was.
I propose to name this system of fittings the lectern-system; and I shall shew, as we proceed, that it was adopted, with various modifications, in England, France, Holland, Germany and Italy.
Fortunately, one example of such fittings still exists, at Zutphen in Holland, which I visited in April, 1894. Shortly afterwards I wrote the following description of what is probably a unique survival of an ancient fashion[310].
The library in which these fittings occur is attached to the church of SS. Peter and Walburga, the principal church of the town. A library of some kind is said to have existed there from very early times[311]; but the place where the books were kept is not known. In 1555 a suggestion was made that it would be well to get together a really good collection of books for the use of the public. The first stone of the present building was laid in 1561, and it was completed in 1563. The author of the Theatrum Urbium Belgicæ, John Blaeu, whose work was completed in 1649, describes it as "the public library poorly furnished with books, but being daily increased by the liberality of the Senate and Deputies[312]."
The room is built against the south choir-aisle of the church, out of which a door opens into it. In consequence of this position the shape is irregular, for the church is apsidal, and the choir-aisle is continued round part of the apse. It is about 60 feet long, by 26 feet broad at the west end. In the centre are four octagonal columns on square bases, supporting a plain quadripartite vault. The room is thus divided longitudinally into two aisles, with a small irregular space at the east end.
The diagrammatic ground-plan, here subjoined ([fig. 52]), will help to make this description clear. It makes no pretensions to accuracy, having been drawn from notes only[313].