This democratisation of luxury, making widely available what was once rare and precious, is a recurrent phenomenon in every era of human history, but it has often had painful consequences for book collecting. An aristocrat could hardly expect the same reception for their collection of 300 texts when the local cloth merchant had as many: better to buy a sculpture, a painting or a lion. Emperor Maximilian II sent his books off to the attic because they no longer featured in this lexicon of conspicuous display.

Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile Hist…, loc. 28