In Alexandria of Egypt in the third century. B.C. were born the Museum (institution sacred to the Muses, protectors of intellectual activities) and the Library.
The first offered all the equipment for medical, biological and astronomical investigations; the second offered the entire literary production of the Greeks. The complex created by the Ptolemies became the greatest collection of books in the ancient world and attracted mathematicians, astronomers, doctors, geographers who with their discoveries and inventions enriched the city intellectually and economically, demonstrating how culture brings wealth more than any other investment.
The library, which came to contain about 700,000 texts, suffered fires and looting during the Roman invasion and later by the patriarch Theophilus and the Mohammedans. The texts were written in papyrus while in another great intellectual center, Pergamum, a very successful form of production was created: parchment. Obtained by processing sheepskin, thanks to it many works have come down to us.
Maurizio Rome Guide 