The Library of Congress: A Renaissance Surprise

Let me just say, I loved the Library of Congress. The tour I took was fantastic. Rather than a young tour guide who was dead in the eyes, had no inflection in her voice, and clearly hated her job, I spent an hour at the Library with a jolly, delightful and informative older woman who was so eager to tell us every little tidbit she knew about what we were seeing that our tour was in danger of running longer than the allotted hour.

From the outside, the Library of Congress is by no means overwhelming in its stateliness...
But inside, it is pure Renaissance splendor!

Every angle was a treat to behold.

Looking up to the second floor from the first floor.

The grand and colorful ceiling.

The missioin of the Library of Congress is, basically, to preseve everything. Books, periodicals, doctoral dissertations; publishers are mandated to send the Library two copies of everything they print. There is so much material the library actually consists of three buildings and other storage areas around the city. The grand reading room (no photography allowed) is gorgeous. Almost everywhere you turn there is a statue with a special meaning. In the dome above the reading room are a bunch of different statues that represent the different arts and sciences: philosophy, history, etc. We were also shown one of the first books printed on the Gutenberg printing press. I was stunned by the interiors of the building. The outer structures don't prepare you for the grandiosity and vivid color inside.

Probably my favorite part was the special exhibitions on the second floor. The first one I saw was the Exploring the Americas exhibit, which is perhaps my favorite period in history. The exhibit displayed many early maps of the Americas, emerging European-American towns and ancient cities like Cuzco and the Aztec capital in current Mexico city. Old maps are one of my favorite things to look at. I love everything about them: how their coastlines seem familiar but misshapen, the strange creatures drawn in deep waters, the ancient writing, the contrasting colors of land and water. The exhibit also revealed artifacts from the time, some taken from the indigenous people and some belonging to the settlers. My favorite artifacts were the old books, some of which explained the flora and fauna of the new, strange lands. Other books were histories of exploration or informative works of political and military conquest sent back to the Spanish Crown. Many contained brightly-colored drawings.

I spent nearly too long in this exhibit and had to rush through the other exhibit I was especially interested in seeing, which was photographs of Civil War soldiers. Why didn't anyone smile in photographs back then? It's quite fitting, I suppose, the grim stares before going off to war. I was haunted by how young many of the soldiers were; far younger than me. I left the Library of Congress inspired to read more works of history from both the Age of Exploration and the Civil War.