Gabriel Naudé (1600–1653) – Serving the Power and the Book

The author of this paper utterly agrees with Montaigne’s and his followers’ criticism of pedantry and specialized erudition. Consequently, the followings offer a personal reading of Naudé’s treatise on the library. Gabriel Naudé was the first to lay the theoretical basis of the public library. The author of the treatise Advice on Establishing a Library was himself an incarnation of cosmopolitism by his implication in the debates of his time and his relationship to various European centres of power. He was a courtier, an agile political counsellor, pleasing in conversation, and holder of a much exercised sense of judgment. The library is an aspect of the formation of his personality. His interest in such an institution illustrates a new type of social contractarianism, imposed by absolute power: urban eloquence as opposed to medieval heroism. At the same time, this interest also addresses the technological shock provoked by the dissemination of printing. This paper offers a presentation and discussion of Gabriel Naudé’s perception on the library in a close textual approach. The practical issues of acquisitions and organization of book collections are treated with a spirit of intellectual opening deriving from scepticism, and of respect for the great intellectual figures of Antiquity and Modernity.

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