Like El Escorial, it had a forbidding exterior; its interior decoration, however, like that of the splendid library of Philip II's monastery-palace, showed, literally or allegorically, Spain's victorious battles with the enemies of Catholic Christendom.
The final results of refurbishment were much admired by visitors – though not by George Eliot, who remarked cuttingly on the "splendid library, of course, with soft carpet, couches etc, such as became a sympathiser with the suffering classes.
Noël Coward's 1951 comedy gets off to a heart-sinkingly creaky start: in a splendid library (splendidly designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis) a butler (Rory Bremner) and a lady's maid (Caroline Quentin) discuss the dismaying news that the young earl (spot-on Sam Hoare) is about to bring home his intended bride – horror of horrors, a movie star.
Why does this happen here, when in France, which is apparently in a worse economic state than the UK, a small village like Plouer-sur-Rance in Brittany (pop. c3,300) is able to build a splendid new library and village hall?
Great machines and prefabricated palaces for the people were being transported along the railway on flatcars; thick books lay on the shelves of the library; splendid people were travelling in trains.
Our splendid building, a former library, was renovated 10 years ago with the addition of a café, specialist bookshop and a leafy garden.
It is not that Lee is disapproving of Wharton, or fails to do justice to her exemplary qualities, her intelligence and artistry and the triumphant energy and will invested in the passage from the ugly upper-class duckling to the literary queen with her posh leather-bound library, her splendid gardens, her international fame.
The public library is such a splendid institution; you should honor what I suspect you know to be the intent of this rule rather than embrace some sort of money-talks philosophy.
But the new kings of the insect library are surely the many splendid coleoptera scurrying over the pages of MG Leonard's fizzing, delightful debut, winningly illustrated by Júlia Sardà.
There is luxury in ever corner of Il Salviatino, as well as WiFi that works (Grazie, Dio!), and one of the most splendid and quiet rooms is the grand library here (above).
Libraries, of course, a university, splendid museums, a gilded concert hall: Carnegie's largess to Pittsburgh is still overwhelming even a century after the previous Gilded Age.
