In photos: Eight of the most beautiful libraries in the world

Massimo Listri travels to some of the oldest and finest libraries around the world to celebrate their architectural and historical wonder

Between them, the medieval, classical, baroque, rococo and 19th century institutions hold some of the most precious records of human thought and deed (Massimo Listri/Taschen)

From the mighty halls of ancient Alexandria to the coffered ceilings of the Morgan Library in New York, human beings have had a long, enraptured relationship with libraries.

Like no other concept and like no other space, the collection of knowledge, learning and imagination offers a sense of infinite possibility.

It’s the unrivalled realm of discovery, where every faded manuscript or mighty clothbound tome might reveal a provocative new idea, a far-flung fantasy, an ancient belief, a religious conviction, or a whole new way of being in the world.

Massimo Listri travelled to some of the oldest and finest libraries to reveal their architectural, historical and imaginative wonder – through great wooden doors, up spiral staircases, and along exquisite, shelf-lined corridors of the outstanding private, public, educational and monastic libraries, dating as far back as AD766.

Between them, these medieval, classical, baroque, rococo and 19th century institutions hold some of the most precious records of human thought and deed, inscribed and printed in manuscripts, volumes, papyrus scrolls and incunabula.

In each, Listri’s poised images capture the library’s unique atmosphere, as much as their most prized holdings and design details.

Featured libraries reveal the astonishing holdings, from which highlights are illustrated, but also of their often lively, turbulent or controversial pasts – like Altenburg Abbey in Austria, an outpost of imperial Catholicism repeatedly destroyed during the European wars of religion, or the Franciscan monastery in Lima, Peru, with its horde of archival Inquisition documents.

These libraries take you on a cultural-historical pilgrimage to the heart of our halls of learning, to the stories they tell, as much as those they gather in printed matter along polished shelves.

You can purchase ‘Massimo Listri. The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries’, published by Taschen, here