Trinity College Library | Is this the most beautiful one?

Trinity College Library Dublin is the library of Trinity College and the University of Dublin. It is the largest library in Ireland and, as a legal deposit or “copyright library”, it has rights to receive material published in the Republic of Ireland free of charge; it is also the only Irish library to hold such rights for the United Kingdom. The Library is the permanent home to the famous Book of Kells. Two of the four volumes are on public display, one opened to a major decorated page and the other to a typical page of text. The volumes and pages shown are regularly changed.

The Library began with the founding of Trinity College in 1592. The 65m long (213 ft) main chamber of the Old Library, the Long Room, was built between 1712 and 1732 and houses 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books. After it was first built The Long Room had a flat ceiling, shelving for books only on the lower level, and an open gallery. By the 1850s the room needed to be expanded as the shelves were filled due to the fact that the Library had been given permission to obtain a free copy of every book that had been published in Ireland and Britain. In 1860, The Long Room’s roof was raised to accommodate an upper gallery.