National Library of Greece

The main building of the library

The National Library of Greece (Greek: Εθνική Βιβλιοθήκη ) is located near the center of Athens. It was designed by Danish architect Theophil Freiherr von Hansen as part of his trilogy Athenian neoclassical buildings, including the Academy of Athens and the original building of the Athens University. The execution of construction was in the hands of the architect Ernst Ziller.

History

The original idea of a national library comes from the philhellenes Jacob Mayer. In an article in his newspaper Greek Chronicles (published in Messolonghi ) of August 1824 he quarreled with Lord Byron for the Greek Independence. Mayer's idea was implemented in 1829 by the Greek government by Ioannis Kapodistrias, when he ordered the establishment of the National Library, among other educational institutions such as schools and museums. Initially, the library was temporarily housed in the orphanage on the island of Aegina, which was under as an educational institution of the same department. End of 1830, the total amount 1018 books. 1834 saw the move to Athens.

1834, the library was founded as an institution, it was distributed to the completion of the building to various locations, at which time the stock had reached in 1995 books, Christoforos and Konstantinos Sakellarios gave another 5400 books and Markos Renieris 3401 books. 1842 was the stock about 15,000 books. It was located in the university building, was until 1903 when the company moved into the building donated by Panayis Vagliano. From 1877 to 1910 the classical scholar Michael Deffner was director of the library.

Before the library is designed by Georgios Bonanos statue of Panayis Vagliano, a patron of the library.

Collection

The library has 4,500 Greek manuscripts, making it one of the largest collections of Greek writings. In addition to holding many bulls and an archive of the Greek Revolution.

The library collection is a codex of the four Gospels, which are assigned to the writer of Matthew, a Unzialhandschrift with a fragment of the Gospel of Matthew from the 6th century ( uncial 094), the Flora Graeca Sibthorpiana the English botanist John Sibthorp, the Rigas ' chart of Rigas Velestinlis; The Great Dictionary of Etymology, a historic Byzantine Dictionary and the first editions of Homer's Epien and poems.

Some other manuscripts in this collection are 075 uncial, and minuscule uncial 0161 798