AMBROSIANA, LIBRARY. — The Ambrosiana Library belongs among the great libraries established through the munificence of learned patrons. Founded in 1607 by Federico Borromeo, archbishop of Milan (1594–1631), cousin of s. Carlo, it was definitively opened on 8 December 1609. It is among the first libraries intended for public use; in this may be discerned the founder’s great and far-reaching service to the advancement of learning during the wearisome period following the Italian Renaissance.
The character and purpose of the library may be inferred from the volume of the Statuti, written in Latin by the founder himself and still in force. Federico Borromeo’s intention was in fact to establish, under the shield and insignia of s. Ambrogio, more than a library in the proper sense: a kind of universal athenaeum of the sciences and letters, in order to raise the general level of culture, particularly among the clergy, placing it at the service of religion and scientific progress in an age when culture itself, after the splendours of the Renaissance, seemed to have declined. For this purpose Borromeo established a college of fifteen learned men, selecting them from among the best members of the ecclesiastical estate, including foreigners, and assigning them the task of cultivating the various sciences, with special interest in history, philosophy, classical literature and Eastern languages in general. He provided for the support of the college through the institution of five-year endowments, with material resources and the transfer of landed property, which at first proved sufficient to maintain the prescribed number of selected scholars, but over the course of the centuries proved less adequate, so that the initial number subsequently dwindled. The obligation nevertheless remained for the chosen scholars, whom he officially called dottori, each to devote himself exclusively to a branch of knowledge (singuli singula) and to publish the fruits of his completed scholarly research, maintaining contact with the learned men of Europe and neglecting any other undertaking that was not scientific. The cardinal would also have contributed even greater material subsidies to the support of the library, had the events of his life and the circumstances of the times been more favourable to him. The conservators, who were entrusted with administering the endowment and providing the dottori with every opportunity for their studies, numbered six; by perpetual right, the eldest member of the princely Borromeo family belonged among them.
The Ambrosiana Library arose from the foundations in the centre of Roman Milan, near the Duomo, on a strip of land parallel and almost adjoining the church of the Holy Sepulchre. The building was erected, as Manzoni wrote, with spirited lavishness, one might say with royal magnificence, during the period of Spanish rule in Milan. Borromeo had first consulted five architects on the matter: Tesauro, Trezzi, and especially Lelio Buzzi, Fabio Mangone and Francesco Richino. But since the library did not satisfy the good taste of its founder, in 1618 he added to it, on the site of the demolished Taverna school, a large collection of paintings or picture gallery (v. AMBROSIA, PINACOTECA). Another important accession was the Settala museum, which was incorporated into the Ambrosiana Library, although mutilated and less complete, in the eighteenth century: it was one of the first museums founded in Europe, with an ethnographic, historical and archaeological collection demonstrating the outstanding scientific genius of the Milanese patrician who had assembled II. Borromeo also wished to add to the library the administration and possession of the Colossus (the so-called S. Carlone), together with the adjoining hill near Arona, on the foothills along the shore of the lower Verbano.
The library, as a building complex, continued to expand in the following centuries. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, after the Napoleonic army had plundered the Ambrosian treasures of art and manuscripts, and after their subsequent restitution following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the library was further enlarged through the definitive transfer of the adjoining premises formerly used by the suppressed Dominicans of S. Maria della Rosa, the Oblates of the Holy Sepulchre and the charitable institution of S. Corona. Thus, after the ancient church of S. Maria della Rosa had also been demolished and, on its site, the architects Moraglia and Cagnola had constructed the new façade of the library building, with a new reading room and new rooms for the picture gallery, in 1836 the institution appeared considerably enlarged. In 1923 the inner courtyard was converted into a large consultation room, dedicated
by the prefect Gramatica to Pope Pius XI (with a bronze statue of him by Quattrini, 1927); and, after the annexation in 1928 of the church of the Holy Sepulchre and its dependencies, following the extensive reforms of 1927–32 and 1938 (architects Moretti, Minali and Annoni, prefect Giovanni Galbiati), the Ambrosiana institution had quintupled its original extent and architectural expression, now enclosed within an independent quadrilateral standing on its own between Piazza S. Sepolcro and Piazza della Rosa, today called Piazza di Pio XI.
The Ambrosiana Library is famous for its collection of ancient manuscripts and codices, assembled for the most part by the founder himself through the work of learned commissioners whom he commissioned and sent during the first decade of the seventeenth century to acquire books in various countries of Europe, including Germany, the Netherlands, France, Provence and Spain, as well as in the countries of the eastern Mediterranean and especially in the Ionian Islands, Greece, the Aegean basin, Syria, Turkey, Egypt and North Africa. These men collected a vast and varied assemblage of volu-
But the Ambrosian collections continued to grow through further donations notable for their richness: in 1637, through the gesture of Galeazzo Arconati, a relative and admirer of the cardinal, the manuscripts and drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, including the Codice Atlantico, entered the library; and, during the prefecture of Achille Ratti, so did the Trotti-Bentivoglio bequest, the group of Parini’s original manuscripts, as well as the substantial Arab-Yemeni collection, acquired in 1909 through a civic subscription and on the initiative of the Islamologist Eugenio Griffini. Another Arab collection arrived from Tripolitania in 1927 through the offices of G. A. Noseda. The cav. Reschigna of Cannobio supplied a copious selection of notarial parchments. G. Martelli donated the archive and manuscripts, together with the correspondence, of Cesare Cantù.
As for printed works, the b. A. possesses approximately 2,000 incunabula in Greek and Latin, including works on unique and highly important subjects. It is exceptionally rich in sixteenth-century books and rare editions from every European country, some of them acquired by Federico Borromeo himself, but enlarged through subsequent acquisitions and donations by patrons, among whom we may mention the Scot David Colvill, Stefano Rampini, Teodoro Osio, Giovanni Pasquali, G. B. Rusca, Count Abbiate-Forieri, donna Talenti of Florence, the Oblates of the Holy Sepulchre, as well as the Simonetta, Migliavacca, and Lambertenghi libraries; Marelli, with works from the Napoleonic-French period in Milan; A. Bonelli, Baron Custodi, Marquis Fagnani, William Currie, with select incunabula, G. Cerutti, F. Agnelli, the bocino C. Menzingher, Cristoforo Bonavino, C. Nardi, P. Tosi, Tullo Massarani, Duke Tom-
(phot. Bibl. Ambrosiana)
AMBROSIANA, BIBLIOTECA — Battle between the Achaeans and Trojans. Iliad, book VIII, vv. 245–54, vignette XXIX. Ambrosian Homer (4th century).
maso Gallarati-Scotti, the counts Giulio and Porro Lambertenghi, likewise with a series of incunabula, the Villa-Pernice, Polli, and Osnago libraries, the astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, Antonio Ceriani, Poma, Vitali and, more recently, Gioconda Ellero, Amilcare Piccioni, Maria Pedetti-Ponchielli, the duke Giordano Orsini of Naples, Enrico Casanova, Carlo Giussani with his Japanese collection, Giuseppe Marietti with the Teubner classics and the great paleographical reproductions of De Vries, the Arab-Muslim library of Eugenio Griffini (1926), also supplemented with Arabic manuscripts, the glottological library of Carlo Salvioni (1929), the libraries of Luca Beltrami and Achille Ratti, the monumental cartographic reproductions of the Cairene prince Yâsuf Kamâl for the Dutchman F. C. Wieder. By the will of Count Giacomo Mellerio (1847), the library of the Certosa of Pavia was annexed to the A.; it was left, however, at that location. In 1937 there was another significant bibliographical enlargement with the annexation of the entire Ludocicianum, or Museum of Lodovico Pogliaghi, on the Sacro Monte above Varese.
As a result of these additions, the collection of printed works also became imposing, without the quantity in any way detracting from the quality; the Ambrosian collections are rich not only in incunabula, but also in Aldine, Elzevir, Cominiane, and Bodonian editions, in those of the Giolito, Giunta, and Roberto Stefano presses, while illustrated works, bibliographical rarities, and great collections are also numerous: in short, everything that can make an institution of this kind precious. There are likewise numerous and varied original antique artistic bindings. This richness continues to grow in every branch of knowledge (linguistics room, paleographical room), as well as in modern technology, although the purpose of the library is retrospective in nature, and its chief merits therefore relate especially to fields that serve to reconstruct the past. In 1947 the library was enlarged by the extensive and valuable deposit of the Milanese archiepiscopal historical archive, consisting of 1,340 miscellaneous files containing a total of 4,000 unpublished manuscript volumes.
Attached to the A. are an archive containing the three-century documentation of the institute’s internal development; an extensive collection of notarial parchments with medieval imperial diplomas; the correspondence of s. Carlo Borromeo and Federico Borromeo, comprising 60,000 items; a Lapidary Museum with Roman and medieval inscriptions on marble; a Medagliere and a Numismatic Cabinet containing approximately 15,000 items, with a collection of ancient Roman coins and, especially, more recent Italian coins; and a cabinet, recently established, for the restoration of manuscripts and parchments. From its earliest beginnings, the A. had its own printing press which, after a period of fruitful activity, ceased to operate around the middle of the 19th century.
The A. had the good fortune to see its solemn praise woven by Alessandro Manzoni, who, in chapter XXII of I Promessi Sposi, devotes entire pages to describing its origin, development, and functioning; and, in fact, over three centuries of existence, it has given learning men of exceptional worth, beginning with the founder himself, Federico Borromeo; the first librarian, Antonio Olgiato of Lugano; Antonio Giggi, the very first scholar of Arabism; the historians Ripamonti, Sassi, and Oltrocchi; Ludovico Antonio Muratori; Angelo Mai; the Orientalist and palaeographer Ceriani; Giovanni Marcati; L. Gramatica; and Achille Ratti, who became Pope Pius XI.
The Dottori of the A. are also invested with certain honorary titles, recognized in civil law, and in religious-ecclesiastical functions they proceed with the chapter of S. Ambrogio in the city — Vedi Tavv. LXXX-LXXXI.
Among the printed catalogues of manuscripts, we note the following alone for their scope: G. De Hammer-Purgstall, I codici Arabi, Persiani e Turchi della b. A., in Bibl. Ital., Milano 1839; A. Reifferscheid, Bibliotheca Patrum Latinorum Italica, Vienna 1871; Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum Latinorum bibliothecae Ambrosianae, Bruxelles 1892; O. Seebass, Handschriften von Bobbio in der Vatikanischen und Ambrosianischen Bibliothek, Lipsia 1896; D. Bassi e E. Martini, Catalogus codicum Graecorum Bibliothecae Ambrosianae, 2 voll., Milano 1906; R. Beer, Bemerkungen über den ältesten Handschriftenbestand des Klosters Bobbio, Vienna 1911; G. Cesari, Catalogo delle opere musicali mss. della b. A., Parma 1911; E. Griffini, Catalogo dei mss. arabi di nuovo fondo della b. A., I, Roma 1910-19; P. Revelli, I codici geografici della b. A., Milano 1929; A. Rivolta, Catalogo dei codici Pinelliani Latini dell'A., Milano 1929; C. Bernheimer, Codices Hebraici bibliothecae Ambrosianae, pref. G. Galbiati, Firenze-Lipsia 1938. An earlier list of illuminated manuscripts was given by A. Mai in Studii fragmenta antiquissima cum picturis, Milano 1819; P. d'Ancona ed E. Aeschlimann, Dictionnaire des Miniaturistes, 2ª ed., Milano 1948. On the palaeography of the Ambrosian codices: E. A. Lowe, Codices Latini antiquiores, III, Oxford 1938. Studies consisting of extracts from Ambrosian codices: R. Sabbadini, Sposi Ambrosiani Latini, Firenze 1903; id., Classici ed Umanisti da codici Ambrosiani, in Fontes Ambrosiani, II, Firenze 1933. Reproductions of codices are plentiful, as are studies on subjects drawn from Ambrosian codices. For the incunabula preserved in the b. A. cf. [L. Gramatica]. Catalogo degli Incunaboli Ambrosiani, Milano 1924.
Scientific publications of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana: in addition to the individual publications of its scholars, the Biblioteca has published periodically, in volumes of their own, the Amflecta Ambrosiana since 1919 and the Fontes Ambrosiana since 1929.