Fig. 127. Elevation of one bay on the east side of the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, drawn to scale from the existing building.
By this contrivance the windowes of the Library rise high and giue place for the deskes against the walls, and being high may be afforded to be large, and being wide may haue stone mullions and the glasse pointed, which after all inventions is the only durable way in our Climate for a publique building, where care must be had that snowe driue not in....
The general design seems to have been borrowed from that of the Library of S. Mark at Venice, begun by Sansovino in 1536. The Italian architect, like Sir Christopher Wren, raised his library on a cloister, which is in the Doric style, while the superstructure is Ionic. The Venetian example is more ornate, and there are statues upon every pier of the balustrade. The arcades are left open, because there was not the same necessity for accommodating the level of the floor to that of older buildings, and also because the wall opposite to the windows had to be left blank on account of the proximity of other structures. No consideration for fittings such as influenced Wren could have influenced the Italian architect.
The style of Wren's work will be understood from the elevation of a bay on the east side ([fig. 127]), drawn to scale from the existing building. If this be compared with the original design ([fig. 126]), it will be seen that the style there indicated has been closely followed.
We will now consider the fittings. A long stretch of blank wall having been provided both along the sides and at the ends of the room, Wren proceeded to design a masterly combination of the old and new methods of arranging bookcases. As he says in another passage of the same memoir, when describing this part of his design:
The disposition of the shelues both along the walls and breaking out from the walls ... must needes proue very convenient and gracefull, and the best way for the students will be to haue a litle square table in each Celle with 2 chaires. The necessity of bringing windowes and dores to answer to the old building leaues two squarer places at the endes and 4 lesser Celles not to study in, but to be shut up with some neat Lattice dores for archives.
The bookcases, designed by himself, were executed under his direction by Cornelius Austin, a Cambridge workman. My illustration ([fig. 128]) shews one of the "4 lesser Celles" with one of its doors open, and next to it a "Celle" for students with table, revolving desk, and two stools. These pieces of furniture were also designed by Wren.