Address :   20, Souk Al Attarine (Ex-Caseme El Attarine)

The Bey Hammouda Pasha paid a special attention to the fortifications and quartering; he made build the external enclosure of the city and five barracks with the center of the Medina of which the barracks El Attarine built in 1814.

As of the installation of protectorate (1881) the garrisons left it and the colonial administration installed there the “Management of Antiquities” and “the General Library”.

The General Library reorganized and enriched by thousands of works and handwritten Arab coming from the Large Mosque and the médersas of the Medina, was called since, the National library.

Its plan is that of a barracks; he points out that of the residence, the foundouk or Médersa, by the fitting of spaces around an interior court. This one is of oblong form, it is surrounded by galleries on which vast barrack rooms open.

Some still relate to their frontage; plates bearing the name of the companies of janissaries to which they were affected.

It later became a prison. In 1924 it became the National Library and home to what was the Department of Antiquities and Arts (until 1958). Today the building is used exclusively by the National Library and houses all historical manuscripts that were scattered around other public libraries.
www.bibliotheque.nat.tn