Room IV of the Library

This spacious New Hermitage room, decorated with marble busts of ancient philosophers and poets and sculptural depictions of noted statesmen, public figures and scholars of the Modern Era, houses bookcases containing publications on geography, maps and plans (about 2,000 volumes).Between the 1840s and the 1860s the Hermitage library turned from the independent book repository of Catherine's time into one of the personal libraries of Emperor Nicholas I (the fourth). Its allotted role as a museum library dictated limitations to the expansion of its stocks, which from that time on took in only specialist literature on art, archaeology, history and numismatics necessary to support research activities. Separate book collections were created for the departments of the Imperial Hermitage to assist the museum staff.

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