In 1537, King François 1er issued the Ordonnance de Montpellier, by which one copy of each published book had to be deposited in the king’s library.
Today, the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France – BnF) consists of seven sites, and receives 70,000 books, 250,000 magazines and thousands of specialized documents every year.
The oldest site of the BnF is the Richelieu site. It was home to the king’s library since 1721. Located in the heart of the 2nd arrondissement, the former palace of Cardinal Mazarin (not to be confused with Mazarin’s library La Mazarine) was built in the 17th century and subsequently enlarged up until the 20th century.
The new BnF museum on the Richelieu site showcases exceptional objects from the BnF collections, among them the throne of King Dagobert (King of the Franks in the 7th century), Charlemagne’s chessboard or the largest gold piece ever found.
The Richelieu site of the Bnf is open to the public. The salle Ovale reading room has free access, for the museum you need to purchase a ticket. Guided tours are available. For access to the research libraries (of which Richelieu is only one site), you need to sign up advance.
The Salle Ovale is a reading room with over 20,000 volumes for reference, among which 9,000 comic books and mangas.
The Labrouste reading room was created for the Imperial Library. Today it hosts the library of the national institute for art history.
