25 February,2010 10:44 AM IST | | Special Features
The Town Hall, which houses the Asiatic Library, a heritage building at Horniman Circle, will be soon getting a makeover. We bring you some interesting facts about its prestigious history:u00a0
>> The Town Hall was earlier known as Tondal in the 19th Century.
>>u00a0Constructed somewhere near 1830, the Town Hall has been profoundly influenced by Greek and Roman styles of architecture.
>>u00a0In 1954, it was renamed the Asiatic Society of Bombay; it acquired its present nam (Asiatic Library) in 2002.
>>u00a0The library is home to 15,000 rare and valuable books. It also has priceless articles, over 3,000 ancient manuscripts in Persian, Sanskrit and Prakrit.
>>u00a0It is the city's largest library with a collection of 8,00,000 antique volumes and is also a proud owner of one of the only two known original copies of Dante's Divine Comedy.
>> It also has a collection of over 1,000 ancient coins and a rare gold mohar belonging to the Mughal Emperor Akbar.
