a growing index of mainly academic resource links

Before you lies a vast hall with two levels. On the far wall before you, a fireplace holds warmth and light; a parchment map of the world resides above the mantle and shimmers with colors of reds and blues and greens, as fanciful creatures dart in the drawn oceans. Bright banners and tapestries color the walls on either side of the hearth. Twin wooden staircases decorated with metalwork spiral up from the corners of that wall; they lead their eyes upward, and you see a raftered ceiling hung with chandeliers full of tapers.

More, you see a second story--really just one large rectangular balcony on either side. Both boast mullioned windows flooding the room with light. Here and there, a colored pane of glass adds a bright surprise and throws a patch of ruby or emerald or sapphire brilliance on the floor. Both balconies also hold worn and comfortable chairs, small tables with quills and inkpots and scraps of parchment, and shelf upon magnificent polished-wood shelf of books.

And indeed books are everywhere: the Library is a treasure room full of volumes: antiphonaries filled with music, illuminated manuscripts of poetry and tales, leather volumes of learned prose and healing arts, rare foreign scrolls from the Arab and Greek worlds, maps of nations and seas, the thoughts of long-fallen Rome and Athens still preserved. As you look around the Room, you see that the ground floor is lined with shelves, taller than a man, on every wall; more bookcases stand in precise order around the Room, carefully arranged. The floors are covered with thick carpet, the walls with tapestries and costly paintings.

As you walk slowly into the pride and joy of the Castle, you see more closely the colors all around you, and you notice the quietly cheerful scents of parchment leaves, oak-gall ink, paint, and fresh wood-and candle-smoke. The shelves gleam quietly around you, as sunlight plays off the rich leather bindings and golden lettering of the books. The Library is free to all and open before you, with all manner of learning and pleasure inviting the guests who enter its doors. Come in, choose a book, explore the world through it; sit down, relax, and steal a quiet hour for yourself.