Strahov Library Panorama

Apparently Jeffrey Martin at 360cities has created the largest indoor photograph, which is a QTVR/pano taken from the center of the Philosophical Hall in the Strahov Monastery Library in Prague. While its boring to get caught up in a pissing contest over gigapixels and gigabytes (though sadly typical in the photo world), what is more interesting is the library itself, which recently underwent a massive renovation:

“After a thorough preparation, the library was dismantled, first the parquets, which were documented piece by piece. Photographs and old book covers were found under the floor, which had been put there to prevent the floor from creaking. After that the wooden bookshelves were worked upon, most of them were renovated right on the spot,” said Mr. Šidlovský. Then the scaffolding was put up for the restorers, Karine Artouni and Alena Krahulíková, who removed all the unnecessary repaintings and past interventions from the magnificent fresco Spiritual Development of Humanity.

The same type of work was carried out with the wood, the old layers of varnish had to be removed and a new one had to be put on following the classical recipes. The wood also had to be strengthened, as parts of it were eaten by woodworms. Only a few ornaments were added,” said Mr. Šidlovský.

Technically, Martin's image it is almost 3,000 photographs stitched together, not one, however. At first, the number of images seemed unreasonable, but this is the result of such meticulousness:

Martin’s panorama lets you examine the spines of the works in the Philosophical Hall’s 42,000 volumes, part of the monastery’s stunning collection of just about every important book available in central Europe at the end of the 18th century — more or less the sum total of human knowledge at the time.

Its pretty amazing that you can zoom in a read what's on the spines here, especially since, for the most part, the public is not granted access to this room.

As an aside though, I couldn't resist including the part about "the sum total of human knowledge at the time". Its tricky business when you start equating books with human knowledge.