Athen's national library

While being in Athens for business I had a couple of free weekends to browse around the city and the national library was one of the more impressive buildings I bumped into.

If you want to visit the address might come in handy:

• Panepistimiou 32, Athina 106 79

According to wikipedia it was designed by the Danish architect Theophil Freiherr von Hansen, as part of his famous Trilogy of neo-classical buildings including the Academy of Athens and the original building of the Athens University.

The original idea for establishing a National Library was from the philhellene Johann Jakob Mayer, in an August 1824 article of his newspaper Ellinika Chronika, published at Missolonghi, where Mayer and Lord Byron had been promoting Greece's independence. Mayer's idea was implemented in 1829 by the new Greek government of Ioannis Kapodistrias

In 1842, the Public Library merged with Athens University's library (15,000 volumes), and was housed together with the currency collection at the new building of Otto's University. The first director (then-called "president") was Georgios Kozakis-Typaldos of the newly enlarged institution, retaining the job until 1863. At this time, the Library was enriched with significant donations and with rare foreign language books from all over Europe. With the royal charter of 1866, the two libraries merged, and were administered as the "National Library of Greece".

The library has 4,500 Greek manuscripts which is one of the greatest collection of Greek scripts. There are also many chrysobulls and archives of the Greek Revolution.

All shots by Sony DSC-HX9V