reading

Jules Verne wrote the above to specify his preferred audience. Whether or not during the witching hour, the reader’s activity and behaviour need define the space he occupies. Antonello da Messina’s painting of St. Jerome in his study is just such a behavioural analysis. It is “an accurate and brilliant portrayal of the characteristics most needed if there is to be a successful communication between the accumulated store of knowledge and the reader. The problems and solutions are present in that single picture. St. Jerome has something like thirty volumes within reach and obviously room for a good many more. Although any monastic library of Antonello’s time, the second half of the 15^th century, would have housed a very much greater collection than this, it seems likely that these thirty books satisfied the Saint’s needs for a considerable period of study and that they could have dealt with a sizeable part of the then available knowledge. Storage, accessibility and expansion had thus simple and direct solutions… Furniture, enclosure, space, light, outlook, are all manipulated to aid the communication between the book and its reader (p.9, Brawne).”