Ancient Rome began to pay attention to book collection from the 2nd century BC. After the Roman rulers conquered the eastern countries, they brought books back to their countries as trophies and displayed them in private houses. Relevant historical data prove that private libraries in ancient Rome were quite common. At that time, M.T. Vallo, who was known as the most knowledgeable, also had a large private library. He also wrote a three-volume book "On the Library" (lost). At this time, booksellers appeared. They used educated slaves to copy and sell books.

When Caesar was alive, he entrusted Valo to build a large library similar to the library of Alexandria. Later, due to the assassination of Caesar, the plan failed. A few years later, his subordinate G.A. Pollio established Rome's first public library in the Roman Freedom Temple. Roman emperors, especially Augustus and Trajan, devoted themselves to the construction of public libraries. The largest is the Urpia Library established by Trajan in 1 13. Libraries in ancient Rome were generally divided into two parts ── Greek books department and Latin books department. According to the ancient guide Miracle of Rome, at the beginning of the 4th century, there were 28 public libraries in Rome alone.

The library building in ancient Rome was similar to the Pagama Library. M Vitruvius, a famous architect in the 1 century BC, mentioned the architectural design of the library in his 10 volume "On Architecture", requiring the library to have enough lighting for readers to read. Moisture-proof is beneficial to the preservation of papyrus documents. The Western Roman Empire perished in 476 AD. As a wing of ancient culture, the library was inevitably trampled by medieval religious forces.

History of Western Libraries