The Trinity College Dublin library, the oldest in Ireland, will remain closed for three years from next autumn to carry out a refurbishment work aimed at protecting works of art such as The Book of Kells or William Shakespeare’s First Folio .
Those responsible for what is known as the Old Library reported on Tuesday that the objective of the work is to modernize “the environmental control of the building” to preserve its collections “from the threats of dust or contamination.”
At the center of this remodeling will be the majestic Long Room, the main room where 200,000 ancient books and manuscripts are kept, including “the greatest treasure in the Western world”, as described by the medieval chronicle The Annals of Ulster to the Book of Kells, of 680 pages dated around 800 AD.
It is a unique piece of medieval art in the world due to its illustrations of mythological creatures and its Christian iconography and Celtic symbology.
“A whole record that transcends the purely historical and that accompanies the four gospels of the New Testament, in Latin,” explained the head of the Trinity exhibition, Andy Murphy, in a statement.
The expert also recalled that the First Folio, which is now 400 years old, “is one of the jewels in the crown of the ‘Old Library’ collection”, whose most intriguing aspect “is a set of inscriptions that have yet to be deciphered”. .
A mystery, he assured, that adds to the incessant search for copies of that first edition of which some 750 copies were published and of which only 235 have been located worldwide, including that of Trinity College in Dublin.
This compilation work by the English playwright is accompanied by a tribute at the Old Library with an exhibition titled Shakespeare the Irishman, exploring the Bard of Avon’s influences on 19th-century Irish nationalists.
