The newly restored BnF Richelieu is more than a library. It’s a repository — described as “a vast archipelago of spaces” – for art history and culture, containing manuscripts, prints and photography, coins, medals and antiques. The AAPA met with Laurence Engel, the library’s director, on November 24 and toured these historical rooms and their priceless collections: the scores of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata in the composers’ own hands, Dagobert’s folding throne, and an astonishingly bad 19th-century copy of the famous 17th century full-length portrait of Louis XIV, showing off the Sun King’s well-formed legs. Two hours were not enough to visit the library’s collection and savor the rooms themselves, such as the Mazarin Gallery, the Mansard Gallery, the Oval Room, and the Louis XV Salon, with decorations painted by Romanelli, Boucher, Van Loo and Natoire.