Voltaire's Library
Constantine Ukhtomsky
1859
Watercolour
Art and Culture of the North Pontic area of the 8th century BC - 3rd century AD
Hall 117
Photo 2022
Voltaire's celebrated library was purchased by Catherine II in 1779, following the philosopher's death the previous year. From the outset this collection was handled with extreme care. All the twelve crates containing 6,801 volumes were packed by Voltaire's librarian Jean-Louis Vaniere and opened by him in St Petersburg. Checking book after book against the inventories, Vaniere placed them in the same order "as they had been used by the philosopher in the castle of Ferney." Sadly in the years that followed readers were rarely given access to the Ferney treasure-house. Nicholas I gave very strict instructions forbidding "reading and making extracts from Voltaire’s books". Only in 1832 was an exception made for Alexander Pushkin, whom the sovereign permitted "to dig in the old archives for the writing of the story of Peter the First".