I saw where every single (except one, I think) King and Queen of Spain has been buried in one room since the beginning of the sixteenth century today and by far the best library I’ve ever been in: the first Arabic and Galician texts (period.) a bunch of books dating back to 600, a bible whose letters were stitched out of gold, and a giant dynamic model of the Ptolemaic universe. Oh yeah, and written on the outside the doors to the library was a warning to thieves that if they took a book, they would be hunted down, beheaded and their soul sentenced to eternal damnation. Apparently been carried out, too (well, can’t vouch for the damnation part). Take that, Book of Kells. 800 AD… psh.
Oh yeah, sorry. Don’t have any pictures of the good stuff because Spain hates camera-wielding tourists… if stealing a book = eternal damnation, I didn’t want to figure out what digital reproduction would be.
Goin’ to Barcelona next weekend… !!
