Gabriel Naudé
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
librarian
Librarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
and scholar. He was a prolific writer who produced works on many subjects including politics, religion, history and the supernatural. An influential work on library science
Library science
Library science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the...
was the 1627 book Advice on Establishing a Library. Naudé was later able to put into practice all the ideas he put forth in Advice, when he was given the opportunity to build and maintain the library of Cardinal Jules Mazarin.
Naudé is a precursor of Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle
Pierre Bayle was a French philosopher and writer best known for his seminal work the Historical and Critical Dictionary, published beginning in 1695....
and Fontenelle
Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle
Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle , also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author.Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France and died in Paris just one month before his 100th birthday. His mother was the sister of great French dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille...
.
Biography
Naudé was born in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in early 1600 to a family of modest means. His father was a lowly official and his mother was a young illiterate woman. He was described by his teachers as tenacious and passionate about his education. Naudé entered college at a young age where he studied philosophy and grammar. Later he studied medicine at Paris and Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...
(where he attended Cesare Cremonini
Cesare Cremonini (philosopher)
Cesare Cremonini, sometimes Cesare Cremonino , was an Italian professor of natural philosophy, working rationalism and Aristotelian materialism inside scholasticism...
's lessons), and became physician to Louis XIII
Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority...
.
At the age of twenty, Naudé published his first book Le Marfore ou Discours Contre les Lisbelles. The work would bring him to the attention of Henri de Mesme, President of the Paris Parlement. Mesme offered Naudé the job of librarian to his personal collection. Mesmes had a large library for the period (about 8,000 volumes) and it was open to scholars who had the appropriate references. Naudé's service in Mesme's library would give him experience which he would use later to write the book Advice on Establishing a Library. Naudé wrote Advice for Mesme as a guide for building and maintaining his library. In 1629 he became librarian to Cardinal Jean-François de Bagni at Rome, and on Bagni's death in 1641 librarian to Cardinal Francesco Barberini
Francesco Barberini (seniore)
Francesco Barberini was an Italian Catholic Cardinal. The nephew of Pope Urban VIII , he benefited immensely from the nepotism practiced by his uncle...
.
At the desire of Cardinal Richelieu he began a controversy with the Benedictines, denying Jean Gerson
Jean Gerson
Jean Charlier de Gerson , French scholar, educator, reformer, and poet, Chancellor of the University of Paris, a guiding light of the conciliar movement and one of the most prominent theologians at the Council of Constance, was born at the village of Gerson, in the bishopric of Reims in...
's authorship of De Imitatione Christi. Richelieu intended to make Naudé his librarian, and on his death Naudé accepted a similar offer from Cardinal Mazarin. For the next ten years he devoted himself to bringing together from all parts of Europe the noble assemblage of books known as the Bibliothèque Mazarine
Bibliothèque Mazarine
The Bibliothèque Mazarine is the oldest public library in France.- History :The Bibliothèque Mazarine was initially the personal library of cardinal Mazarin , who was a great bibliophile...
. Mazarin had brought with him to Paris a collection numbering over 5,000 volumes. Like Naudé, he believed in an open library to be used by the public for the public good. In 1642 he purchased a building to house his library and he instructed Naudé to build up the finest collection possible.
The fastest way was to absorb entire libraries into the collection, advice that Naudé included in his book. Naudé plundered second hand book sellers, and Mazarin instructed his ambassadors, government officials and generals to collect books for him. Naudé was able to travel Europe, and during one trip that lasted several months he collected over 14,000 volumes. By 1648 the library had built up to an estimated at 40,000 volumes. It was open on a regular basis and had built up a sizable number (almost 100) of regular patrons, and several staff members to keep it functioning properly. It became the first in France to be open for all, without references.
Mazarin's library was sold by the parlement
Parlement
Parlements were regional legislative bodies in Ancien Régime France.The political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the previous council of the king, the Conseil du roi or curia regis, and consequently had ancient and customary rights of consultation and...
of Paris during the troubles of the Fronde
Fronde
The Fronde was a civil war in France, occurring in the midst of the Franco-Spanish War, which had begun in 1635. The word fronde means sling, which Parisian mobs used to smash the windows of supporters of Cardinal Mazarin....
, and Queen Christina
Christina of Sweden
Christina , later adopted the name Christina Alexandra, was Queen regnant of Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Princess of Finland, and Duchess of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, from 1633 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora...
invited Naudé to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
. He was not happy in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
, and on Mazarin's appeal that he should re-form his scattered library Naudé returned at once. But his health was broken, and he died on the journey at Abbeville
Abbeville
Abbeville is a commune in the Somme department in Picardie in northern France.-Location:Abbeville is located on the Somme River, from its modern mouth in the English Channel, and northwest of Amiens...
on 10 July 1653.
The friend of Gui Patin, of Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the...
and all the liberal thinkers of his time, Naudé was no mere bookworm; his books show traces of the critical spirit which made him a worthy colleague of the humorists and scholars who prepared the way for the better known writers of the siècle de Louis XIV.
Works
Including works edited by him, a list of ninety-two pieces is given in the Naudaeana. The chief are:- Le Marfore, ou discours contre les libelles (Paris, 1620), very rare, reprinted 1868;
- Instruction à la France sur la vérité de l'histoire des Frères de la Roze-Croix (1623, 1624), displaying their impostures;
- Apologie pour tous les grands personages faussement soupçonnez de magie (1625, 1652, 1669, 1712), PythagorasPythagorasPythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
, SocratesSocratesSocrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, Thomas AquinasThomas AquinasThomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
and SolomonSolomonSolomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
are among those defended; - Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (1627, 1644, 1676; translated by John EvelynJohn EvelynJohn Evelyn was an English writer, gardener and diarist.Evelyn's diaries or Memoirs are largely contemporaneous with those of the other noted diarist of the time, Samuel Pepys, and cast considerable light on the art, culture and politics of the time John Evelyn (31 October 1620 – 27 February...
, 1661), full of sound and liberal views on librarianship and considered as a founding stone of library scienceLibrary scienceLibrary science is an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary field that applies the practices, perspectives, and tools of management, information technology, education, and other areas to libraries; the collection, organization, preservation, and dissemination of information resources; and the...
; - Addition à l'histoire de Louys XILouis XI of FranceLouis XI , called the Prudent , was the King of France from 1461 to 1483. He was the son of Charles VII of France and Mary of Anjou, a member of the House of Valois....
(1630), this includes an account of the origin of printingPrintingPrinting is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
; - Bibliographia politica (Venice, 1633, etc.; in French, 1642);
- De studio liberali syntagma (1632, 1654), a practical treatise found in most collections of directions for studies;
- De studio militari syntagma (1637), esteemed in its day;
- Considérations politiques sur les coups d'êtat. A disciple of Machiavelli, he considered that politics must be rendered "autonomous from morality, sovereign in relation to religion"
A Bibliotheca Pontificia was completed and seen into print by Louis Jacob.
Advice on establishing a library
Advice, written as a set of instructions for a private collector and was based on Naudé's own experience and research. In the introduction of his book, Naudé wrote that he is not an expert in the field of librarianship but he presented what he believed to be the most important ideas. He based some of the opinions in Advice on his own experience in Mesme's library, and wrote out for Mesme the accepted practices and principles of librarians of the time. Chapters covered topics such as number of books, selecting the books, procuring the books, etc.Naudé's first chapter poses the question, "Why establish a library?" He answers the question with a simple message; there is no greater honor than building a great library and sharing it with the public. Naudé believes libraries should model themselves after the best libraries of the world. The first task is to create a plan. Before a person can erect a library, he must educate himself on the subject of collecting and organizing books. A person must also seek the guidance of those who have already built their own libraries or are in the process. He suggests studying and copying the catalogues of other libraries.
Naudé devotes an entire chapter to book selection, remarked upon throughout. The first authors who need to be purchased are those considered experts in their respective fields. No matter whether they are ancient or modern works, if a book is held in high regard by practitioners of a particular field then it should be present in any collection. In addition, any well known interpretations or commentaries that exist are a necessity. Naudé suggested purchasing books in the original languages because meaning can often be lost in translation. He is strongly against censorship of any kind. Naudé believes that every book has a reader regardless of the subject; and that information should be free and available. Readers could always find use of a book, even if it is to refute the ideas presented on its pages. Certain books are popular at times but later forgotten; he argued that it would be beneficial to a library if there were multiple copies of these books to accommodate the popular tastes of the times.
In his chapter on book acquisition, Naudé gave tips. The easiest way is to purchase another library in its entirety. Naudé went on to praise second-hand book sellers who often provided good books at cheap prices. Naudé himself browsed book-binding and printing shops for used paper, and had once discovered a rare manuscript that a book binder was using as scrap paper.
Naudé included a chapter in Advice for arranging the books. In discussing arrangement he quoted Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, "It is order that gives light to memory." He gave instructions that he considered logical. His subject headings included: theology, philosophy, jurisprudence, medicine, history, mathematics and humanities. Naudé would add other subject heading in later years but these categories best represented the known body of knowledge in the world. Each section should be divided into subheadings and begin with the principal authors followed by the commentaries.
Further reading
- James V. Rice. Gabriel Naude, 1600-1653 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1939).
- Sidney L. Jackson. "Gabriel Naude: 'Most Erudite and Most Zealous for the Common Good,'" Stechert-Hafner Book News 23 (5 January 1969)
External links
- Biography of the Bibliothèque Nationale de FranceBibliothèque nationale de FranceThe is the National Library of France, located in Paris. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine.-History:...
(BNF) - Gabriel Naudé: symbols, representations and rituals in the Coup d'État by Joseph Parada F.