Massimo Listri. The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries. 45th Ed.

Massimo Listri, a Florentine photographer known for his architectural and interior compositions, turns his camera on some of the oldest libraries in the world. His pictures move through private and monastic collections from the Middle Ages to the 19th century and read each hall both as architecture and as a record of cultural history.

This compact edition of the XXL title runs to 512 pages in hardcover, with text in German, French and English. The essays are by Elisabeth Sladek, an art historian specialising in Baroque art and architecture, and Georg Ruppelt, a former director of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Bibliothek in Hanover.