Gabriel Naudé

Born in Paris in 1600, Gabriel Naudé studied medicine in Paris and Padua, but he became most famous for his work with books and libraries. He served major church and political figures as a librarian, including Cardinal Bagni and Cardinal Barberini in Rome, and later worked with Cardinal Mazarin in France.

Naudé is often remembered as one of the first important thinkers on modern library organization. His 1627 book Advis pour dresser une bibliothèque argued for building large, useful collections and making them broad in scope, an idea that helped define the research library tradition.

He was also a prolific writer with wide interests, publishing on politics, religion, history, and even the supernatural. That range, along with his practical work as a librarian, made him an important figure in the history of scholarship and library science.