In The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco describes a labyrinthine monastic library large enough to lose oneself in. The novelist didn't mention how many books filled its rooms, but John O. Ward of the University of Sydney worked out some straightforward calculations based on Eco's description of the layout and space. The collection, he concluded, would amount to 85,000 volumes.
The library was the "greatest in Christendom," Eco wrote. But actually, it was far, far bigger. It's not uncommon for a modern American public library to contain so many volumes, but no medieval library possessed that number—nowhere close.
