The Bibliothèque Mazarine is a public library at 23 quai de Conti on the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris, inside the Palais de l'Institut de France. Cardinal Jules Mazarin founded it as his personal collection and bequeathed it in his will of March 6, 1661. The building stands on the site of the medieval Tour de Nesle and faces the Pont des Arts and the Louvre.
Mazarin's palace on rue de Richelieu held a 58-meter chamber for the library, with about 40,000 volumes by 1653. The uprising known as the Fronde led to looting and losses in 1652. The library opened for Easter in 1689, and its holdings grew from 36,000 volumes in 1730 to over 60,000 after the Revolution.
The reading room has gilded bronze chandeliers, Louis XVI commodes and a celestial globe of 1694 by Gastellier. Today the library holds about 600,000 volumes, 4,600 manuscripts and 2,370 incunabula.
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