The garden, from Antiquity to the present day

“This book was born from the creation of a garden, itself a sort of concentrated book! » explains Monique Mosser, historian of art, architecture and gardens. On the occasion of the renovation of the National Library of France museum and its gardens, those responsible for the editorial services and curators had the idea of ​​designing a work which would present both the place and the richness of the collections of the different departments of the BNF in terms of the history of gardens… A wonderful adventure which lasted more than a year, almost two.

Since Antiquity, a link between garden and thoughts

“If you have a garden in your library, nothing will be missing,” wrote Cicero. Since Roman Antiquity, a conjunction has been established between the pleasure of the garden, walking and reading. In the texts of Cicero, but also in Greek philosophy, since most of the great thinkers practiced their art during walks. We often imagine that the first gardens were small enclosures of subsistence origin. For Monique Mosser, perhaps it is necessary “look for the symbolic side, in this small garden linked to the temple and religion, which must already have a dimension of beauty. We have very ancient evidence from ancient Egypt where plant assemblages suggest that there was already a curiosity for plants. »

The beauty of the garden at the National Library

Henri Labrouste, who founded the National Library in the 19th century, decorated the walls of the monumental reading room with a decor of trees and a sky inspired by gardens. For Monique Mosser, this bucolic inspiration is perhaps to be found in the architect's breaks in the Luxembourg Gardens, where he liked to relax. Especially since there were nurseries at the time, on the site of the current Observatory. Henri Labrouste explained that this type of decor is pleasant for those who concentrate on reading and who, at one point, look up and see this canopy and a few birds above the vault.

And again at the Richelieu site

As the BNF construction site draws to a close, a competition is organized in spring 2019 to create a new garden on the site of Square Vivienne, which over time had housed various small gardens, one of which created by Labrouste. During the work, it was used to house the library's temporary offices, then the barracks, the living base for the construction workers. This garden was all the more important as it had been decided that the National Library of France could no longer be accessed via rue Richelieu, but via rue Vivienne… And this is how the idea was born of the Papyriferous Garden, which contains a collection of plants known to be used in the production of writing and printing materials (whether their leaves, their bark or their roots): Betula Papyrifera (birch paper), Cyperus papyrus (papyrus)…