This study examines the history of the foundation of the Imperial Library in Vienna and the work of Hugo Blotius (1534–1608), its first librarian. Beyond the reference to the institutional standing of the library, the title (L'impero di carta [The paper empire]) also alludes to the fragility of the institution (24), which was established in Vienna a few years before the capital was transferred to Prague. Also, it was founded by Maximilian II in the context of a multicultural and peaceful atmosphere that was to change in the following years. Various themes are treated in this work, which aims to provide a “history of a library and a librarian.” The core of the book comprises four chapters, each dedicated to one of the main elements involved in the management of the library—“The space of books,” “The profession of books,” “The order of books,” and “The audience of books”—with an incantatory repetition of the crucial word in their titles. The research context and the researcher's perspective are explained in the introductory and concluding chapters. The author aims to contribute to the history of science by analyzing a subject that, according to her, “until recently only bibliographers or librarians interested in the history of their own institutions would undertake” (273).

The study of the foundation of the Imperial Library offers an occasion to investigate questions of importance, such as the reorganization of knowledge in the late sixteenth century. Blotius arrived at Vienna in 1574, after a long pilgrimage that began in the Low Countries, where he was born, and included France, where he took a degree in law, as well as Switzerland and Italy. During this period, he met some of the major collectors of the time (such as Ulisse Aldrovandi) and had the opportunity to become acquainted with the successors of Conrad Gesner. The encounter with Theodor Zwinger was decisive: “The study of the work of Zwinger led Blotius to think that the fathers of jurisprudence, who had been the fundamental points of reference in his education (‘Accursius, Bartholo et Baldo’), had led him far from being ‘an ethical and political man’” (175). Blotius had conceived a very ambitious project, comprising a museum generis humani in Frankfurt, a bibliotheca Europae in Speyer, and the Bibliotheca Universalis Imperialis in Vienna (170). In Vienna, however, he faced a complex situation. Being the Imperial Librarian turned out to be quite a challenge, and he encountered obstacles in all of the activities of making the catalogues, raising funds for acquisitions, dealing with associates and readers, and managing the lending of books. In his private life, Blotius made convenient choices, including two marriages that provided him citizenship and economic stability. According to Molino, however, by doing this he renounced his loftier ambitions: “With two marriages and the choice of staying in Vienna, he became a perfect Bürger, and condemned himself to a life as a librarian” (127). What kind of life constitutes “a life as a librarian” is not revealed in this book.

On the other hand, one may infer from chapter 4 that librarians and bibliographers played a major role in the reorganization of knowledge and, therefore, in the creation of interpretative categories and epistemological paradigms. Certain questions pertaining to the history of the book are less simple than they appear here. In chapter 3, the role and profile of the librarian are discussed on the basis of definitions found in Tommaso Garzoni's Piazza universale di tutte le professioni del mondo (1585). Based on her interpretation of this work, the author states that “printers more than librarians played a key role in the Book Revolution that embroiled late sixteenth-century society” (142). It is not clear, though, to which revolution she is referring. Would that be the printing revolution of the fifteenth century?

Generalizations such as these, occasionally found in other parts of the book, are not really necessary to make Molino's work more interesting or stimulating than it is already for a broad audience, which will include everyone interested in the case in question as well as all early modern historians and, of course, all scholars who specialize in the history of the book and the history of libraries.