Mckim's Grand Proposal (4)

McKim sent this carefully worded letter to Morgan in early 1904, two years after he was commissioned to design the Library. He asked for a meeting to present the interior designs along with a comprehensive cost estimate. To mark the Library’s association with the Italian Renaissance, McKim proposed that the front doors be surmounted with a marble bas-relief incorporating the trademark of Aldus Manutius, the celebrated Venetian scholar-printer who founded the Aldine Press in 1494.

Morgan approved the designs and the budget. He retained this letter, one of only a handful between the two men to survive.