Library

LIBRARY. - From the Greek βιβλιοθήκη, a repository of books. It is a collection of books chosen according to organic criteria of subject matter, ordered and preserved so that they may be used for purposes of study and delight. The name indicates not only the book material and the furnishings, but also the room or the building. Along with the term b. one also finds that of libreria (from the Latin libraria) with an analogous and sometimes identical meaning. According to Tommaseo it is preferably attributed to private collections. It seems instead that it more properly designated the cabinet or the shelf, and should therefore be considered a synonym of the German Bücher-skrank and of the English book-self or book-case, or rather of small collections. In any case, in Italian nomenclature this term has lost vitality and currency. In the Anglo-Saxon countries the word library is used with the meaning of b.

I. ANCIENT PERIOD

1. The East

The earliest history of libraries among the civilizations of the East is indistinguishable from that of religious rites.

The Assyrian tradition is of sacred origin. A deposit of clay tablets with texts in cuneiform characters, dating back to the 3rd millennium B.C., was found at Nippur within the precinct of a temple during excavations carried out between 1890 and 1900. But already in 1850 Layard and Rassam, on the hill of Qujingk near Nineveh, discovered a deposit of fully 22,000 tablets, today preserved in the British Museum. They belonged to the library of King Ashurbanipal (7th century B.C.) and preserve for us the greater part of Babylonian literature, of ritual and magical texts, of history, of science, and of technical, didactic and administrative books. Each tablet bears a mark for the numbering of the pages and a note of ownership (property of Ashurbanipal, king of the world), which may be considered the oldest example of an ex libris. There are also reports of libraries attached to sanctuaries in Babylon, Assur, Cuthah (2 Kings 17:24), Agade, and Nippur.

In Egypt libraries already existed in the pre-Ptolemaic period, according to the testimony of epigraphic texts. It is not known, however, to which period the oldest ones belonged. Some writers hold that they go back to the age of the primitive use of papyrus, that is, to the 4th millennium B.C. Their hypothesis is not confirmed by any certain proof or indication. Rather, the age of Amenophis I of the 18th dynasty is given as more probable, though without any reliable documentation. We owe to Diodorus (I, 49, 3) the legendary account of a library that a king, Odymandyas, ignored by all other sources, is said to have placed in a great building erected for that purpose, giving it the name ψυχῆς ἰατρεῖον (clinic or medicine of the soul). Perhaps Diodorus is referring to the library that King Ramses Miamun (14th century B.C.) had arranged in a hall of the Ramesseum near Thebes, placing it under the patronage of the gods Thoth and Sesha. Lepsius found among the ruins of the building the tombs of two librarians. Remains of libraries also came to light at Memphis, at el-'Amârnah between Hermopolis and Siut, among the ruins of ancient Akhetaten, and at Oxyrhynchus. The great quantity of fragments found in the vicinity of the great Egyptian cities shows that the book had a notable diffusion even in the dwellings of private persons of the various social classes. There are signs of a circulation of books in no way dissimilar from that of our own time, and of a multiform production that turned to every branch of knowledge: theology, magic, poetry, novels, fables, and even veritable encyclopedias, indicated as books of Thoth and disseminated in thousands of copies throughout Egypt. In the great centers of culture an entire organization of scribes must have provided for the work of transcription and for the trade in texts. The collections that had formed everywhere were dispersed or suffered damage during the Persian domination and later with the arrival of the Macedonian conquest.

Among the Hebrews there is mention (2 Macc. 2:13)

that Nehemiah (5th century B.C.) built in Jerusalem a library to gather there the sacred books and other documents: it is related in the public records and in the memoirs how he, founding a library, "gathered together the books concerning the Kings and the Prophets, and those of David and the letters of the Kings concerning the gifts [made to the Temple]".

2. Greece

According to a legend reported by Athenaeus (I, 3a) and by other classical writers, the founding of the most ancient libraries in Greece is attributed to Polycrates of Samos and to Pisistratus. But many elements make this tradition seem scarcely reliable.

The first mention of bibliographic collections is found in the Frogs of Aristophanes (943, 1409) and therefore goes back to the end of the 5th century. Euripides too is said to have been a collector of books (Athenaeus, loc. cit.), as could also be inferred from certain allusions in the Alcestis (962) and the Hippolytus (451, 954). Such uncertain and indirect allusions cannot be considered sufficient to document the existence of true and proper libraries in Greece. Socrates in fact (Xenophon, Memorab., IV, 2, 1; 8, 10) considers exceptional the case of Euthydemus son of Diocles, a rich young man and lover of studies, who had collected literary and philosophical works, among which were complete copies of the Homeric poems. Athenaeus (loc. cit.) furthermore speaks of the library of the Athenian Euclid.

In the 4th century the flourishing of the philosophical schools had promoted and spread the love of studies, creating a new and unusual need for the texts required by teachers and disciples. Thus writing workshops and numerous libraries came into being, among which are remembered that of Clearchus of Heraclea on the Pontus (Mem, Fragm., I, 2, in C. Müller, Fragmenta historicorum Graecorum, III, Paris 1883, 527) and that of Nicocles, son of Evagoras, king of Cyprus (Athenaeus, loc. cit.). We could not imagine the Academy without a sufficient supply of texts. Strabo (XIII, 608 ff.) says that Aristotle was the first collector of books (πρῶτος ὢν ἴσμεν συναγαγῶν βιβλία). At his death the library, after passing successively to Theophrastus and to Neleus of Scepsis who transferred it to Mysia, was purchased by Apellicon of Teos who found it largely full of gaps. The Roman dictator Sulla is said to have found it at Athens and to have taken possession of it, carrying it afterwards to Rome. All these vicissitudes are narrated by Diogenes Laertius (V, 62).

At Alexandria arose the greatest Hellenic library. Its original plan was devised by Ptolemy I (323-280), but the execution was carried out by Ptolemy II (280-246). It was made up of two sections: the more important bore the name of Brucheion and had its seat near the museum in the palace of the kings, the smaller was placed in the Serapeum, outside the royal quarter. It contained works in the Greek language. The texts in Assyrian, Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic and Egyptian were translated into Greek. It is possible to reconstruct the topographical distribution of the library's furnishings and their content from the catalogues (πίνακες), of which the most complete is that of Callimachus. From the information of the historian Tzetzes and from the Oxyrhynchus papyrus 1241, as well as from numerous other catalogues (laterculi) one can derive a list of some of its librarians. The Alexandrian library was enriched with volumes not only through purchases made, but also and above all through the daily work of its copyists, who transcribed the texts emending and reviewing them. Thus the tradition of the scriptorium was consolidated, obeying a rigorous set of rules. The division of the material into volumes was regulated by norms that established when works should be contained in a single roll (ἀμιγείς βίβλοι) and when several opuscules should constitute a miscellany (συμμιγείς βίβλοι) and how the various parts of one and the same work should be grouped. It also determined the length of each volume according to the number and the kind of verses in it (stichometry). The Alexandrians also used diacritical marks, punctuations and other conventional indications.

According to a tradition that had a long but uncertain fortune (Seneca, De tranquillitate animi, IX, 5; Dio Cassius, XLII, 38, 2; Gellius, Noctes atticae, VII, 17; Plutarch, Caesar, 49) the library is said to have been destroyed by the fire that Caesar's fleet set in the port of Alexandria (47 B.C.). Shortly afterwards, however, it still appears to have existed, so much so that Antony enriched it with 200 thousand volumes coming from the spoliation of the library of Pergamum and given by him to Cleopatra. From then on, however, the decline had certainly begun. In the times of Aurelian (270) the collection of the Brucheion is said to have definitively perished; in 391 the fanatical mobs of the patriarch Theophilus are said to have devastated and set fire to those of the Serapeum.

The Byzantine Tzetzes says that in the times of Callimachus the Brucheion contained 400 thousand συμμιγείς βίβλοι, 90 thousand ἀμιγείς, and the Serapeum 42,800 volumes. These figures are said to have later risen until reaching 700 thousand volumes when Caesar caused its burning.

Another distinguished library was that of Pergamum. According to an ancient legend the learned king Attalus I (241-197) is said to have put together a certain number of works that constituted the first nucleus around which the conspicuous collections ordered and arranged in the times of Eumenes II would have been formed (Strabo, XIII, 624). The excavations carried out in 1874 by the German mission of the Humanns brought to light the remains of the sumptuous building of the library. It was made up of three contiguous rooms, with a portico in front adorned by a statue of Athena, who, according to Juvenal, was held to be the patroness of libraries. Some holes found in the inner walls should be considered, according to the archaeologists, traces of the supports that held the shelves of the shelving. Other statues, of which the bases with inscriptions survive, also adorned the portico. There one reads the names of Homer, Alcaeus, Herodotus, Timotheus and of other writers. Eumenes is said to have founded the library out of rivalry with Egypt, whose king Ptolemy Physcon (146-117 B.C.) is said to have even prevented the export of papyrus. The legend must be considered scarcely credible because Eumenes had already been dead for twelve years (158 B.C.) when Ptolemy Physcon ascended the throne. In the organization and functioning of the library of Pergamum the Alexandrian influences are felt. It too was not only a depository of books, but a museum rich in works of art and a circle of learned men. It had catalogues that recall the Callimachean πίνακες and a flourishing scriptorium. Plutarch (Antonius, 58, 59) relates that Antony gave to Cleopatra the library collections of Pergamum.

Other libraries too arose and flourished at Antioch and near the pyramid of Cheops through the initiative of King Antiochus III. Mithridates, king of the Pontus, is said to have founded one that later fell into the hands of Lucullus. More ancient, though of smaller proportions, is said to have been that of Hiero II (270-215 B.C.), tyrant of Syracuse. At Athens, next to the gymnasium, a library was founded called Πυλεμαίον, by Ptolemy Philadelphus, which was enriched by the contribution of books given by the young men who frequented it. Considerable bibliographic collections were formed at Smyrna, Chios, Delphi, Halicarnassus, Corinth, Mylasa and Teos, almost always next to the gymnasia. Some are also found in the service of temples, as at Cos, or in private houses, as that of Dio Chrysostom, at Prusa, or of T. Julius Aquila Polemaeanus, at Ephesus.

3. Rome

Victorious Roman generals carried off with them the libraries taken from the vanquished, regarding them as personal spoils of war. The victor of Pydna (168 B.C.), L. Aemilius Paullus, gave to his sons the books that had belonged to Perseus, king of Macedonia (Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus, 28). In 146 B.C. Scipio Africanus distributed to the princes of Numidia, allies of Rome, the Punic books he had found at Carthage, carrying in his triumph only twenty-eight rolls containing the works on agrarian economy by Mago (Pliny, Nat. Hist., XVIII, 22). Andronicus of Rhodes reorganized and enriched the rich library of Apellicon, placed in his villa. Cicero was a very great bibliophile. He possessed numerous libraries in his various residences, at Cumae, Tusculum, Antium, Formiae and on the Aventine (Epist. ad Attic., I, 4, 3; 10, 4; 11, 3; 20, 7; II, 1, 12; 6, 1; IV, 4, 1; 5, 3; 8, 2). His friend T. Pomponius Atticus lavished enormous wealth to enrich with works the great library that he had in his house on the Quirinal, the arrangement of which was attended to by literate slaves. Besides the

Among the texts that he acquired, those written in the adjoining scriptorium also came to form part of it. Quintus Tullius Cicero and Marcus Terentius Varro also had libraries in Rome. The greatest bibliophile of the Republican period, however, was Marcus Licinius Lucullus, a man of broad and varied culture who possessed two libraries, one in Rome, formed around the great collection he had brought from Greece, and another at Tusculum, which he opened to the public with great liberality.

To a slightly later period belongs the library discovered at Herculaneum during the excavations of 1752-54, in a wealthy Roman villa. Six hundred carbonized volumes were found there, almost all Greek, containing predominantly texts of Epicurean philosophers (Epicurus, Demetrius, Polystratus, Colotes, Chrysippus, Camiscus and Philodemus), some of them in multiple copies. Only eighteen Latin papyri were traced in one block. Few insignificant remains of these were saved, among them the fragment of a poem on the battle of Actium attributed to the poet Rabirius. According to D. Comparetti, the villa belonged to Lucius Calpurnius Piso, father-in-law of Caesar and patron of Philodemus.

In the imperial period the library increasingly became part of the necessities of social and private life. Vitruvius, several times in his work, feels the need to assign it a suitable place in the structural plan of the house and of public buildings. Book collections are found scattered everywhere in the dwellings of wealthy lords. Latin works were kept separate from Greek ones, and, in the larger libraries, grouped into two sections placed in different rooms. They are also found in suburban villas and even in the modest dwellings of scholars. The numerous libraries formed in the last period of the empire under the influence of Christian religious currents had a particular character. The noble Gallienus left his to the Church; Tonanzio Ferreolo, Consenzio, Lupus and Magnus owned some in the city or in their country residences. The philosopher Claudian Mamertus had a Roman library, an Attic one and another Christian one.

Among the Roman public collections, first of all one recalls the one that Caesar was forming with the help of M. Terentius Varro and which at his death remained unfinished. The first of these opened to public use is owed to the patronage of C. Asinius Pollio (76 B.C.-5 A.D.), who placed it on the Aventine, where the Atrium Libertatis was. In 28 A.D., by the will of Augustus, a rich library arose in the imperial palace on the Palatine, which, after various vicissitudes, survived until the second half of the 4th century. It had been seriously damaged during the Neronian fire of 64 and later transferred to the palace of the Flavians, where it was subsequently burned two more times (in the years 161 and 363). Octavia, sister of Augustus, founded the library that bore her name and that had its seat in the portico adjacent to the temples of Jupiter Stator and Juno. It fell victim to a fire in 363.

The emperor Tiberius placed his book collections in the temple of Augustus next to the domus Tiberiana, in which, according to what some writers say (Fronto, Epist., IV, 5; Gellius, Noctes Atticae, XII, 20, 1), he would have assembled a private library.

Vespasian gathered in the temple of Peace, together with the books he had brought to Rome as booty from the Jewish war, also the others purchased by him (Pliny, Nat. Hist., XXXVI). The most important for size and for value of texts was the Ulpian library, which Trajan had built in the forum that bears his name, near the column with the spiral reliefs. It was preceded by a portico, of which remains are still visible. In almost all the bath buildings there were public libraries, for example, in the baths of Caracalla, in the Trajanic, Diocletianic and Neronian-Alexandrian ones.

Also outside Rome, in almost all cities of some importance, collections intended for public readings were formed, for example, at Tivoli in the temple of Jupiter, at Como in the villa of Pliny the Younger, at Tortona, at Suessa. Following the transfer of the capital to the East, libraries received considerable impetus at Constantinople, chiefly through the efforts of Constantius, who established another one in the βασιλεύον, which later became the object of special provisions on the part of his successors. In the times of Theodosius II it possessed as many as 120,000 volumes.

4. Christian libraries

The Christians, continuing the Jewish tradition, preserved the habit of assiduously reading Holy Scripture, of which the primitive communities of the faithful must have possessed many copies together with the books indispensable for the practices of worship and for the instruction of catechumens. Christian copyists attended to the preparation of the texts, and their work was ever more lively and appreciated. Culture intensified in Rome and in the Western countries in the 4th century and received a notable impetus especially through the efforts of St. Jerome, who personifies, together with St. Augustine, the great doctrinal and philological movement of his time.

The primitive collections also contained books of more modest content: lists of bishops, lists of the poor, calendars, acts of martyrs, synodal decisions, etc.

The major center of theological studies at the end of the 2nd century was Alexandria, where there flourished a school, which had two great masters, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, a library and a scriptorium. The Hellenistic tradition had a notable influence on the culture of those scholars, to which the culture of Ambrose and Athanasius is later linked. Origen had probably frequented in his native city the libraries of the Brucheion and the Serapeum, and when, as a fugitive, he took refuge at Caesarea, he founded there a great school to which he dedicated all his activity. He united to it a library, which recalls that of the Peripatos, and a scriptorium of Alexandrian inspiration. The continuator and follower of his work was the bishop Alexander, who had also founded at Jerusalem as early as 212 a rich library. After Origen's death, the priest Pamphilus, his disciple, kept alive the school and the library which St. Jerome (De vir. ill., 113) recalls as bibliotheca Origenis et Pamphili. It contained, according to Isidore of Seville (Etymologiae, VI, 6, 1), as many as 30,000 volumes. Eusebius made use of it for the elaboration of his Historia ecclesiastica, and afterwards took care of it, increasing it with numerous books.

Notable for quantity and quality of texts was the library of St. Augustine, later left by him to the city of Hippo. It was dispersed later during a sack by the Vandals.

In Rome the information concerning the origins of ecclesiastical libraries is very scanty. The Liber Pontificalis assures us only that in the times of Pope Anterus (235-36) the acts of the martyrs were kept near the churches. One may suppose that with them were joined the sacred books and the documents concerning the life of the Church.

Pope Damasus (366-84), who had long worked with his father in the scrinium of the Roman Church, founded the basilica of St. Lawrence near the theater of Pompey, designating some rooms facing onto the portico for the archives, in which he also placed the books. Other certain references to an archive (archivum or scrinium) go back to Innocent I (407-17). And this recollection returns often thereafter, sometimes together with that of bibliotheca Romanae ecclesiae, or Apostolicae Sedis. The pontiff Hilary (461-68) had built next to the cloister of St. Lawrence outside the Walls a library of the Roman type, that is, having a Greek and a Latin section. St. Paulinus exhorts the faithful (Epist., 32, 16) to read and meditate on the sacred texts kept in a room to the left of the apse of the church of Nola.

Numerous collections were formed here and there during the 4th and 5th centuries. George of Cappadocia possessed philosophical and literary books; St. Jerome had one at Rome and another in his cloister at Bethlehem. In Palestine libraries were scattered, at times of modest size, near the various religious communities.

The rule of St. Pachomius prescribed to the cenobites of the cloister founded at Tabennisi in 322 that they keep and use the library containing, among other things, Holy Scripture and the Fathers. St. Ammonius is said to have read as many as six million lines of patristic works. He exhorted his disciples to exercise themselves in meditation on the sacred texts. Schenute (d. 451), the eloquent and austere founder of the monastery of Atripe, obliged the cenobites to read and to transcribe books.

Of the same type are the libraries of the Palestinian cenobia which arose in the 4th century in centers of studies such as Caesarea, differing however from those of the Alexandrian type, founded in the same period with an abundance of means and aims that can be found, for example, in the Pamphilian collection. Of the cenobitic type are the library of George of Cappadocia and that of St. Jerome at Bethlehem.

There is no lack in some pre-Benedictine monastery of the West of an analogous scholastic and bibliographical organization. At Marmoutier the religious community founded by St. Martin of Tours in 372 certainly had a scriptorium and perhaps a library. "Ars ibi, exceptis scriptoribus," says Sulpicius Severus, "nulla habetur" (Vita s. Martini, cap. 10). Also at Lérins, on the coast of Provence, the religious had a library whose books were to use them only, and never to possess any others of their own. A similar organization is also found in the two monasteries founded at Marseilles by Cassian (414). St. Patrick (372-461), the apostle of Ireland, having studied at the continental school of St. Germanus in Auxerre, became acquainted with the monastic institutions of Tours and of Lérins, by which he was inspired in founding the first insular schools. When he went to Rome, Pope Sixtus III entrusted to him a great number of books, which he carried with him to Ireland.

5. Technical characteristics of the b. of the ancient period

The b. at first had, as has been seen, a sacred character or one integrative of the practices of the ancient cults, and formed part of the temple and arose beside it. Only later was structural and functional autonomy given to it. For its construction in public buildings and in private houses there gradually took shape an entire body of rules reflecting the tradition of a type that we might call Hellenistic, inasmuch as it draws its origin from the Athenian Peripatos and established itself with characteristics of its own at Alexandria and at Pergamon. Two Roman texts, Varro's De bibliothecis (Gramm. rom. fragmenta, ed. Funaioli, Leipzig 1907) and Vitruvius' De Architectura (I, 2; VI, 4, 7), give notice of it.

The b. was to face east and was almost always preceded by a portico. Pliny (Nat. Hist., XXX, 10) says that it was customary to adorn it with statues, and his report is confirmed by the epigraphic furnishings, which contain dedicatory inscriptions relating to busts of great writers. Sometimes portraits were painted in medallions arranged on the shelves. The plan of the room, habitually rectangular, presented at the far end, on the side opposite the entrance, a niche in which the statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, had a particular prominence because of the patronage it symbolized.

The books were placed on wooden boards at various levels within perimeter niches, often, as at Ephesus and in the b. Ulpia, in several tiers, so that to reach those arranged above, a landing or gallery was built running along the walls of the room. Sometimes the rolls did not lie directly on the shelves but were kept in capsae with a lid.

The cabinets were closed with doors of wood or metal and were harmonized with the architecture of the room. In the b. of the wealthy, precious aromatic woods were used, which also served to keep insects away, or ivory.

In the most ancient period the direction of the b. was entrusted to the ministers of the cult, as, for example, among the Egyptians and the Assyrians, or to teachers, as in Greece. Only by virtue of the Alexandrian institutions did there gradually take shape, through the work of specialists, that is, of copyists and librarians, an entire body of precepts on how to transcribe texts, preserve them, arrange them and make possible their search and consultation. In the Roman b. the function of those assigned to them changes; some of these were to provide, among other things, also for their administration. Slaves were also employed, organized in collegia, but with predominantly executive duties. The custom of entrusting their technical and administrative direction to learned men was never abandoned. In the imperial household the organization of the staff is regulated in relation to the number and the capacities of each, but no distinction is made between the duties of the bibliothecarius and those of the procurator rationum summarum privatarum bibliothecarum. The early Christian book collections appear to have been entrusted to ecclesiastics and exceptionally to the faithful. These reports, however, refer in particular to small nuclei of liturgical texts, and not to true and proper b.

It fell to the librarian to provide for the cataloguing and the placing of the volumes according to criteria and rules that were definitively fixed by the Alexandrians. Among his collaborators are found the copyists, that is, those who attended to the transcription of texts within the walls of the scriptorium, under the guidance and control of learned men who shared the responsibility for so important a work. They constituted a kind of craft, whose compensation was measured by the quantity rather than the quality of their labor.

II. MIDDLE AGES

Odoacer drew to himself from Noricum the monk Eugippius, who founded at Naples, in the Lucullan castle, a scriptorium and a library that had contacts with many scholars, among them Cassiodorus and the exiled

African bishop Fulgentius, who in Sardinia, and precisely at Cagliari, had founded the cloister from whose scriptorium comes the famous text of the De Trinitate of Hilary of Poitiers. A few years later, during the reign of Theodoric, numerous libraries began to be formed, above all through the work of scholars such as Symmachus, Boethius, Mavorzius, Ennodius. Among them particular mention deserves that of the cathedral of Verona, beside the school in which the famous Ursicinus flourished.

At Rome the archivum or scrinium Apostolicae Sedis came to be organized, in the times of Gelasius I (492-96), in which it seems that books were also placed. There were also industrious scribes in which numerous codices were produced. The decree De libris recipiendis et non recipiendis is attributed to the same pope or, as others would have it differently, to Hormisdas (514-523). Studies received a notable impulse during the brief pontificate of Agapetus I (535-36), to whom is due the foundation of the library ad Clivum Scauri, on the Caelian, and of a theological school. Gregory the Great would have transferred to the Lateran palace, in that wing of the Patriarchium which now forms part of the building of the Sancta sanctorum, the pontifical book collections, which are distinguished from his private ones, which always remained in the cloister built beside the church of St. Andrew ad Clivum Scauri. This library therefore is identified with the Agapetan one.

Western monasticism, which continued and revived more remote ascetic customs, created a new cultural tradition in which the book exercised a preponderant action. In the Rule of St. Benedict the obligation of reading is prescribed in the various contingencies of cloistral life. The cenobite had the book in his hands in the choir, at the altar, in the refectory, in his cell, a faithful companion of his day. Many of those readings were done in common (fratres sedentes omnes in unum). Some of them, entrusted to one alone, were to be heard and meditated upon in silence by the others. The choice of passages was provided by whoever had the mandate to do so. And the reader had to carry out his task "cum humilitate et gravitate et tremore" (ch. 47). Individual reading was considered an antidote to otiositas. For a certain number of hours the religious had to devote themselves to the labor manuum and for another period of time to the lectio divina. Two of the eldest (seniores) had to keep watch so that no frater acaediosus, abandoning himself to otio aut fabulis, non sit intentus lectioni and distract the others as well (ch. 48). For Lent the hours to be devoted to reading are also indicated. The library possessed not only the codices needed for the liturgical practices and the daily needs of the monks, but the works indispensable for their studies. It was housed in the cloister and was joined to the school and to the scriptorium, with which it had a continuous and intimate bond.

A great friend of St. Benedict was Cassiodorus, the founder of the monastery of Vivarium, near Squillace, in Calabria. A Christian and theologian, he would have wished to create in Rome a school like those of Caesarea and Jerusalem, but the onset of new political events and above all the death of Theodoric, of whom he had been a collaborator, did not allow him to realize his design. He subordinated his attachment to classicism to the principles and aims of religious doctrine. In the cloister of Vivarium he realized a scholastic organization in which Christianity and paganism (understood as Romanitas), monastic discipline and intellectual work seemed to be reconciled. The toil of writing allows the copyist to resist the diaboli subreptiones illicitae and study opens to the mind the paths of eternal salvation. From his Institutiones divinarum litterarum the life of the library and of the scriptorium can be reconstructed. We therefore know of what kind were the texts he collected, and of the sources from which he drew, of the works he chose and of the norms that were followed in the reproduction of texts. In the treatise De orthographia he gives particular precepts for obtaining correctness of diction. After his death the library was dispersed, it seems, into various nuclei that fed new book collections at Verona, Bobbio and in insular monasteries.

Many libraries were formed simultaneously outside Italy, especially in France. But a more direct bond with Roman culture was preserved by the insular cultural currents, especially Irish ones. In the three hundred cenobites founded especially in Scotland by Columba, monasteriorum pater et fundator, libraries and schools were formed in which continental influences were evident. After that time there is a whole multiplication of libraries and schools in the cloisters that were rising wherever evangelization reached.

In the 7th century the information relating to the vicissitudes of the book collections of the Apostolic See is uncertain. It is known with certainty, on the other hand, that Rome had become a destination for young men who frequented its schools, and for scholars and bibliophiles from every place who flocked there to buy or to donate books. A Greek colony that had taken up residence between the Palatine and the Aventine established schools, libraries and monasteries of the Greek language. Insular monastic colonization spread also to the continent, where numerous libraries, schools and scriptoria arose that kept alive the relations among themselves. In 612 the Irish monk Columbanus arrived in Milan, a fugitive with some of his companions from Burgundy, and found a benevolent welcome at the Lombard court. He also received as a gift the locality of Bobbio, near Piacenza, where shortly afterwards (614) he founded an abbey that soon became a luminous center of studies and the seat of a library and of a scriptorial school. The original book nucleus, which was to contain Irish manuscripts, grew rapidly through accessions coming from the local scriptorium or from purchases and gifts.

In Spain culture was dominated by the work of Isidore, bishop of Seville, a man of vast and profound learning, who, like Cassiodorus, sought to reconcile the old and the new, placing paganism and Germanism at the service of Christianity. He gives proof of his erudition in numerous writings and above all in the Etymologiae, the greatest encyclopedia of the early Middle Ages, in which he used no fewer than one hundred and sixty writers whom he cites verbatim. It presupposes the existence of the library and historical and technical knowledge of disciplines pertaining to the book. One chapter indeed has as its title De libris et officiis ecclesiasticis, another De medicina et bibliothecis, another De librariis et eorum instrumentis. His library, whose catalogue we still know, was in the episcopal palace, next to the pharmacy. He had as a collaborator the bibliophile Braulio, bishop of Saragossa.

The history of the libraries that arose in Frankish territory is the very history of the insular cloisters founded there, at Luxeuil, Corbie, Péronne, St-Riquier (Centula). In Scotland the most important book collection was established in the cloister of Iona, in Northumberland at Lindisfarne, in the Anglo-Saxon regions at Canterbury, Wearmouth, Jarrow. Among the insular centers that transferred to Germanic territory we shall recall Mainz, Fulda, Echternach, St. Gall.

Towards the middle of the 8th century in Rome Pope Zachary (751-52), the last Greek raised to the pontificate, belongs to those bilingual scholars who elaborated texts in the scriptoria of the city. He himself had translated works from Greek into Latin and vice versa. Until that time the vicissitudes of the bibliographic collections remain obscure. It is due to his patronage that the scrinium at the Lateran was reorganized, in which it seems he distinguished the section containing the books from that of the documents. He gave a new arrangement to the building, having a portico built in front of it, in the Hellenistic manner, a tower and a triclinium. Only later, however (781), do we find for the first time a bibliothecarius mentioned, by the name of Theophylact. The library of St. Peter's also had a slow but ceaseless development. The production of books destined for export to even the most distant countries continued in the city. Numerous libraries, some of which were distinguished for the number and importance of their codices, arose or flourished in the cathedrals of Verona, Milan, Vercelli, Pavia, Modena, Lucca, Arezzo, in the monasteries of Nonantola, of the Novalesa and especially of Montecassino, which had a period of great splendor through the work of Paul the Deacon and his school.

A new direction was impressed upon studies by the Carolingian renaissance, which exercised its influence also on libraries, the greatest of which arose next to the famous palatine school on an original nucleus constituted almost exclusively by the codices that came from Rome to Pepin. It had the character of imperial magnificence insofar as it mirrored the multiformity of the cultural currents that converged at the imperial court. The

Christ says that Charlemagne was "the first crowned bibliophile of the Middle Ages," to whom the first courtly and state library is owed. We are outside the cloisters and the churches, before the oldest example of laicization carried out for the most part by ecclesiastical masters, such as Alcuin of York, Paul the Deacon and Theodulf. The fortunes of the library, which ended up declining and dying out, were uncertain and confused; but the new spiritual orientation given to it had profound and lasting repercussions on the later development of studies and of culture.

In the 9th century the flourishing of libraries, schools and ecclesiastical writers continued, especially at Verona, through the work of the archdeacon Pacificus and the bishop Ratherius, at Vercelli, at Turin, at Pavia, at Cremona, at Modena, at Lucca and at Arezzo. Eberhard, margrave of Friuli, possessed a rich collection of codices, and at his court, in the eastern march, he had Rabanus, Hincmar and Gottschalk. Montecassino still dominated studies throughout the whole south, exerting a livelier influence on the Benedictine monasteries. Bobbio too maintained the ancient primacy of its major library, to which it added the new one "ad Speluncam." In that period the bibliographical patrimony was being put in order, and around the 10th century the catalogue of it was drawn up and published by Muratori (Ant. Ital. M. E., III, Milan 1740, p. 818). The monasteries of Nonantola and of the Novalesa were active as well, even if of lesser importance. Such a glorious course was halted by the irruption of Saracen and Hungarian violence that plagued the life of the cloisters. Outside Italy too the barbarian violence made itself felt, contributing to bring about or to hasten the decline of studies in Spain and in the British Isles.

The Cluniac and Cistercian reforms, while directing culture more decisively toward the sacred disciplines, resisting classical and paganizing influences, recalled schools and writers to the rigorous observance of the primitive monastic rules. The Church was passing in that period through one of its most difficult crises, caused by adversities which, if they did not weaken its authority, exercised a perceptible influence on the culture of ecclesiastics. Men of profound learning reacted to the spread of heretical currents, drawing on the pure scriptural and patristic sources and on tradition. Monastic and ecclesiastical libraries increasingly accentuated their sacred character in antithesis to that of the lay schools. Montecassino recovered its ancient splendor, after the abbot Theobald (1023-35) reconstituted the library; and it reached its apogee under the rule of the abbot Desiderius (1056-1086), who later became pope under the name Victor III (1086-87). The scriptorium was very active and the school was much celebrated, in which the greatest scholars of the time exercised their teaching: Amatus, Alfanus, Alberic, Constantine the African, Leo of Ostia.

Fairly intense, even if less lively, was the contribution made to studies by the libraries of the other monasteries, Farfa, Nonantola, Pomposa, Fonteavellana, and above all by those of the cathedrals of Vercelli, Novara, Ivrea, Verona.

The new mendicant Orders nourished the collections with their spirit and their aspirations. Thus were formed those of the Franciscans at Assisi, Siena, Padua (Antoniana), Florence (S. Croce), Todi, and of the Preachers at Bologna, Pisa, Florence (S. Marco and S. Maria Novella), Venice (SS. Giovanni e Paolo), Turin and Naples.

The rise of the universities and the flourishing of legal studies, especially at Bologna, Padua and Naples, coincided with the new fortunes of the Italian vernacular and with the laicizing and Ghibelline orientation of the courts. A profound change occurred in the very conception of the book, produced no longer out of a duty of inner discipline, but in a spirit of gain (scriptores qui pro pretio scribunt), and in that of the library understood as a means of information and of lay studies, sometimes even hostile to the medieval sacred tradition. The distinctly hostile tendency of the schools created by Frederick II and by Manfred later diminished, tempered in the broader and more serene work of the Angevins. The collections of texts formed at Naples, under Charles I of Anjou and above all under Robert his grandson, reflected the spiritual position of the princes and of the culture of their time, as well as the ideal relations that link Naples with Perugia, with Florence and with Avignon.

Among the most glorious libraries collected by the first humanists, mention will be made here of those of Francesco Petrarch (1034-1374), of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-75), Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406) and Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459). Numerous were those founded by patron princes, some of them distinguished for size and for the importance of their texts. Worthy of mention are the valuable collections of the princes of Achaea, the Sforza library of Pavia, the Malatestiana of Cesena, the Estense of Ferrara, the Urbinate of Federico di Montefeltro, the Gonzaga library of Mantua. At Florence the first nuclei assembled by Cosimo and by Piero de' Medici were increased and completed by Lorenzo the Magnificent with numerous codices purchased from private individuals and with others transcribed by copyists whom he paid and sent even to distant countries. He is therefore considered the founder of the Medicea Laurenziana, which was enriched also by his son, Piero, and by the late heirs of his house. Also very valuable was the Aragonese library of Naples, founded by Alfonso I and increased by Ferdinand I and by Alfonso II. It was plundered by the king of France Charles VIII, who transported its most notable part to Paris, where some manuscripts are still preserved. In that period the Marciana library also arose, around the original conspicuous Petrarchan nucleus and the codices left to the republic by Card. Bessarion.

The ancient monastic foundations still survived, continuing an age-old tradition, preserving modest limits in their orientation and in their size, while the new princely collections reflected the new orientations of studies and had taken on unusual developments. The Vatican Library (v.) represents the noblest and most significant link between the ancient and the new institutions, between the Middle Ages and the modern age, between ecclesiastical erudition and humanism.

III. MODERN AGE

The invention of printing accelerated the change in the direction of studies, facilitating the diffusion of the book and intensifying the rate of growth of libraries. It therefore also influenced their structures and their cataloging arrangements.

Library collections multiplied everywhere which, even if they no longer had the importance and the value of those of the earlier period, contributed to the spiritual elevation of an ever greater number of people. The humanistic direction of studies accentuated their erudite character, especially during the Counter-Reformation and the rise of the religious Congregations connected with it. Among the most typical one may point to the Vallicelliana of Rome, founded in 1581 by the Portuguese humanist Stazio Lusitano (Aquiles Estaço), which was enriched shortly afterward with the libraries of St. Philip Neri and of Baronio. Wherever houses of the Girolamini arose, there are libraries that reflect, even in their architecture, a great ornamental splendor. An example will be found in that of Naples, which goes back to 1586. No less important are the Jesuit libraries formed in the second half of the 16th century and in the first half of the 17th. After the Council of Trent numerous seminaries and many more confraternities created considerable bibliographic nuclei, with a sacred and erudite orientation, but they had a true and proper flowering only later.

In 1609 Cardinal Federico Borromeo opened to the public the Ambrosiana (v.) founded by him, a distinguished institution in which a noble tradition of studies was perpetuated. After the Vaticana it is the richest collection of manuscripts, valuable for their antiquity, for their provenance and for their content. After that time many other libraries arose everywhere in Italy. In Rome, the Angelica, formed around the original nucleus of the Augustinian Angelo Rocca, was opened to the public in 1614, and was later enriched with the books of Cardinal Passionei, of Holstenius and of Cardinal Noris. The Alessandrina, established in 1666 by Pope Alexander VII Chigi, opened its doors to readers in 1670. In the last years of the century, and precisely in 1698, Cardinal Girolamo Casanate left by will a fund of 160 thousand scudi for the creation of a public library in the convent of the Minerva. The seat having been built in a short time (1700), the first 20 thousand volumes already collected by the munificent cardinal were placed there, and then the successive accessions.

No less lively was the work carried out for the growth of the library patrimony of the universities and communes at Bologna (1605), Perugia (1623), Padua (1629), Fermo (1688).

The eighteenth century is considered the century particularly favorable to the fortune of erudite studies and to the formation of libraries of the modern type. Spacious and luminous halls, sumptuous baroque shelving, lavish furnishings, an abundance of well-bound books, a livelier and more intense movement of readers, a more grandiose vision of erudite research. At

In Florence Antonio Magliabechi, dying in 1714, left his 30,000 volumes to the poor, but with the understanding that they were to be placed at the disposal of all citizens. Thus was born the Magliabechiana, which grew rapidly through the munificence of princes and private individuals and which constitutes the original core of the National Central Library. Among the most notable accessions, those deserving of mention are the Marini library (1736), the Gaddi (1755), the Biscioni (1756), the Mediceo-Palatine and the Lorraine (1771), the Lami (1775), the Strozziana (1786), the Palatine (1861), and many others. In Lombardy Maria Theresa gave a notable impulse to studies, founding numerous libraries, some of them of considerable importance. She conceived one for the Archiginnasio of Pavia, when she provided for its reform, in 1757. But the true beginning goes back to a few years later (1763) and to the work of Gregorio Fontana, who gathered the first nucleus of academic proceedings. In Milan the Pertusati library, purchased by the Congregation of State and donated to Archduke Ferdinand, contained 24,000 volumes. By a rescript of Maria Theresa of 1770 it was immediately opened to the public, and shortly thereafter, following the suppression of the Society of Jesus, it was installed in the Palazzo di Brera and enriched with numerous collections of various provenance.

Among the others, considerable development was achieved by the libraries of the Universities of Pisa, Genoa, Turin, Cagliari, the Corsiniana of Rome, the Classense of Ravenna, the Federiciana of Fano, those of Bergamo, Brescia, Lucca, Mantua, Palermo.

The history of libraries in the nineteenth century can be divided into two periods, the first prior to unification, the second after it. In the major centers of study they felt the influences of encyclopedism and of the erudite reaction. At Parma the books collected and arranged by Philip of Bourbon from 1769 onward passed to the State during the Restoration (1818) and were installed in the building of the Pilotta. The duchess Maria Luigia showed the greatest munificence toward the new institution, enriching it, among other things, with precious Oriental manuscripts. The Bourbonica of Naples, which had already been constituted in the time of Charles III, was only in 1804 placed in the Palazzo di Capodimonte and opened to the public. Already part of it were the distinguished library of S. Giovanni a Carbonara and the collections of the Jesuits, of the Farnesiana, as well as the Officina dei papiri ercolanesi.

The suppression of the religious congregations during the period of French domination paralyzed the life of studies in many monastic centers and led to the confiscation of substantial book collections which either were dispersed and broken up or encumbered public libraries with material that brought them little or no usefulness. These drawbacks were repeated and worsened after national unification, when the eversive laws placed upon the municipalities and the State the obligation to preserve enormous quantities of works which, by their content and their monotonous uniformity, could not benefit public reading. Each library inherited multiple copies of patristics, ascetics, and theology that represented dead weight and that had nevertheless deprived communities and schools of the means necessary for their work.

Alfonso Gallo

IV. STATE OF THE LIBRARY IN ITALY

From the standpoint of their organization and their purpose, Italian libraries can today be divided into state, provincial and municipal, libraries of ecclesiastical institutes, popular and private.

1. State libraries

State libraries are in turn distinguished into: central national, national, university and governmental without any further determination.

a) The central national libraries are two: that of Florence, which developed around the nucleus of the bequest of Antonio Magliabechi (v. above), today counts 22,000 manuscripts, 400,000 autographs, 2 million printed works, and several valuable collections. That of Rome results from the merger of ca. 60 monastic libraries incorporated by the State following the suppression of the religious Orders and Congregations (1873), among which particularly rich were those of the Jesuits of the Gregorian University and of the Gesù. It possesses ca. 5,670 manuscripts (notable above all is the Sessoriano collection, formerly in the Sessoriana library of S. Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome), 704,000 volumes and 660,000 pamphlets, a rich collection of periodicals and special collections. The "Centro nazionale di informazioni bibliografiche" depends on it. Both these libraries enjoy the so-called "right of printing" or total "legal deposit," by which every Italian publication must be sent to them free of charge.

b) The national libraries, on the other hand, enjoy the same right only for works printed within the province and are of special importance for the bibliographical material of the region. They number five, and are located in the ancient capitals of the major Italian States before unification: the Brera library in Milan, the Marciana in Venice, and the libraries of Turin, Naples and Palermo. The Braidense or Brera library

(v. also above) draws its origin from the private library of Count Carlo Pertusati, purchased by the Lombard State in 1763 and donated to Archduke Ferdinand, son of Maria Theresa of Habsburg, on the occasion of his marriage to Maria Beatrice d'Este. The Empress in 1770 arranged for it to be opened to the public. It counts ca. 570,000 volumes and precious collections, among them that of Manzonian autographs and of musical editions of the house of Ricordi. The Marciana derives from the bequest of 900 manuscripts (among which no fewer than 482 Greek) made by Cardinal Bessarion (1468) to the Republic of Venice (the earlier one of Petrarch remained without effect), material that in 1559 was housed in the "Libreria" specially built by Sansovino; enriched subsequently with the donations of the most famous Venetian families, it today occupies the palazzo della Zecca (the "Libreria," joined to the Zecca, houses the most distinguished relics as a permanent exhibition) and possesses ca. 13,000 manuscripts (many of them finely illuminated), and ca. 520,000 printed works. The National Library of Turin is the continuation of the university library and today counts 2,497 manuscripts, 1,600 incunabula and ca. 350,000 volumes; it suffered irreparable losses with the fire of 1904, during which 27,000 volumes and some very ancient codices were burned, and with the bombing of the night between 8 and 9 Dec. 1942, in which ca. 150,000 volumes were destroyed, especially of the historical section. The National Library of Naples originated from the Farnese collection transported to the city of Naples by Charles of Bourbon in 1734 and opened to the public in 1806; it was subsequently enriched with many private collections and above all with the incorporation (1925) of the libraries of S. Giacomo, Brancacciana, Provinciale, of Maria Carolina of Austria; its holdings, which have suffered no losses despite the collapse of the building during the Second World War, it holds about 4,600 manuscripts and 1,100,000 volumes. The National Library of Palermo is the continuation of the Jesuit library of the Collegio Massimo, sequestered and opened to the public by Ferdinand I in 1778; after the losses caused by the Second World War it numbers about 360,000 volumes and valuable collections of autographs.

c) The government university libraries also enjoy provincial legal deposit. Established for university studies, they have almost all developed along humanistic lines and, with the exception of that of Pavia, they lack scientific publications. There are 12 of them: Pavia (founded by the Empress Maria Theresa in 1757, with a collection detached from the library of the Collegio Ghislieri; it numbers 350,000 volumes); Padua (founded by the Venetian government in 1621; it numbers 330,000 volumes); Genoa (founded with the holdings of the Jesuit library, in 1773; it has various valuable collections); Bologna (arising in 1742 from the merger of the collections of Ulisse Aldrovandi and L. Ferdinando Marsili; it numbers about 480,000 volumes); Modena (founded in 1772, and annexed to the Estense library; it possesses 62,000 volumes); Pisa (constituted with the bequests of two professors of the University in 1742; it has about 240,000 volumes); Rome (called the Alessandrina [v. above], formerly at the Palazzo della Sapienza; it now possesses about 332,000 volumes and 258,000 pamphlets); Naples (arising from the nucleus of the Gioacchina library, founded by G. Murat, and opened to the public in 1827; it numbers 630,000 volumes); Messina (derived from the suppressed Jesuit library, which became municipal in 1778 and then passed to the university in 1838; it possesses about 100,000 volumes); Catania (constituted in 1755 with the nucleus of the private collection sold by the historian G. Caruso; administratively united with the Ventimiliana library, derived in 1873 from the collection of Bishop S. Ventimiglia; together they number 150,000 volumes); Cagliari (derived from the original nucleus donated by Charles Emmanuel III in 1792; collapsed during the Second World War, it still possesses 225,000 volumes); Sassari (begun perhaps as early as the end of the 16th century; it now numbers 90,000 volumes).

d) The other government libraries number 15: 7 in Rome, 3 in Florence, and one respectively in Parma, Modena, Cremona, Gorizia and Lucca. Among the Roman ones special mention is due to: the Casanatense (v. above), rich in precious collections of Roman diaries and edicts and of prints, with a book holdings of about 230,000 volumes; the Angelica (v. above), notable for its collection of Romance philology, with 130,000 volumes; the Vallicelliana (v. above), which now numbers about 40,000 volumes and holds on deposit one of the richest collections of historical journals, owned by the Deputazione di storia patria. The others are the library of the Istituto di Archeologia e Storia dell'arte, the Medica, the library of Modern and Contemporary History, and the Musical library of S. Cecilia. Among the Florentine ones, deservedly famous is the Mediceo-Laurenziana, begun as a private collection by Cosimo the Elder de' Medici (1389-1464) and continued by his successors down to Cardinal Giulio (Pope Clement VII), who had it placed in a sumptuous building fitted out by Michelangelo, in the cloister of S. Lorenzo: the new seat was opened to the public in 1571: classical-philological in character, it possesses more than 10,000 manuscripts, some of them most precious (it suffices to recall the Medicean Virgil of the 5th century and the Horace that belonged to Petrarch), and about 34,000 volumes. Also in Florence are the Marucelliana (about 270,000 volumes) and Riccardiana (40,000) libraries. The other five are the Palatina of Parma (founded in 1769 by Duke Philip of Bourbon; destroyed during the Second World War, it numbers about 410,000 volumes), the Estense of Modena (derived from the private collection of the d'Este family, it possesses about 235,000 volumes and many illuminated manuscripts of great value), those of Cremona (founded by the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria in 1774, it numbers about 200,000 volumes), of Gorizia (arising in 1919 from the merger of the "Studien Bibliothek" with the municipal and provincial libraries; it has about 110,000 volumes), and of Lucca (opened to the public in 1794 with the nucleus of the library of the Lateran Canons of S. Frediano; today it possesses about 330,000 volumes).

Also owned by the State today are the libraries of the former reigning house, among which special mention is due to the two in Turin, that of the king (150,000 volumes and 4,000 manuscripts) and that of the Prince of Piedmont (about 10,000 volumes; specialized in the history of the House of Savoy).

2. Provincial and municipal libraries. There are very many of them, mostly dating back to foundations of the 17th-18th centuries, which are of particular importance for bibliographic material on local history. The most famous of all is the Bolognese one, called the Archiginnasio, opened to the public in 1801 and resulting from the merger of various suppressed libraries; it suffered various damage in the war of 1940-45, but saved its patrimony: it possesses quite remarkable collections of portolans and geographical maps and about 450,000 volumes.

3. Libraries of institutes

Among the libraries of public bodies and institutes, all specialized, it will suffice to mention those of the various regional Deputazioni di storia patria, of the many national and civic academies, of the very many Italian and foreign cultural bodies, and in particular the Roman libraries of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (56,000 volumes), of the British School (about 30,000 volumes), of the Ecole française (40,000 volumes), of the American Academy (about 48,000 volumes); those of the Senate (about 140,000 volumes), of the Chamber of Deputies (about 180,000 volumes), of the various Ministries, that of the Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (about 150,000 volumes); and finally the Corsiniana library of Rome, which has remained with the holdings it had in 1754, when it was opened to the public by Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini (35,000 volumes), today united with the library of the Accademia dei Lincei (about 150,000 volumes), famous for its collection of Atti of all the academies.

4. Ecclesiastical libraries

They are many and notable and often constitute a unicum for their specialized collections. Apart from the Vaticana and the Ambrosiana (for which v. the individual entries), the remaining ones can be distinguished into capitular libraries, seminary libraries, archiepiscopal and episcopal libraries, libraries of religious orders and parish libraries, libraries of universities and of institutes of religious culture.

a) The capitular libraries almost all have a historical importance of the first order, linked as they were to writing centers of particular activity over the course of the Middle Ages: it suffices to recall those of Vercelli (dating back to the ancient Libraria s. Eusebi; it possesses 218 codices, some of them very important, and over 4,000 parchments), of Verona (founded in the 9th century; it collapsed during the war of 1940-45 and has now been rebuilt; cf. Ecclesia, 9 [1949], pp. 33-34; its 1,084 manuscripts were saved, however, among them precious palimpsests of the 4th and 5th centuries, illuminated codices, the manuscripts that served Scipione Maffei's investigations, and furthermore 165 incunabula and about 30,000 volumes), of Padua (arising in 1482; it possesses 322 manuscripts, among them the precious "Evangelary of Isidore" of 1170, 405 incunabula, 8,000 volumes), of Modena (rich in important manuscripts from the 7th century down to the 19th, and in ancient parchments), of Treviso (founded in the 15th century, it numbered, before the very grave losses suffered in the Second World War, 120 manuscripts, 6 incunabula and over 33,000 volumes), of Bergamo (of fairly recent foundation [end of the 18th century], it nevertheless has, alongside its 15,000 volumes and 100 manuscripts, a nucleus of 1,500 parchments, many of which are important for antiquity), of Ferrara (arising by the will of Cardinal Roverella and through the munificence of Ercole I d'Este, it is famous for its 22 illuminated choir books), of Benevento (rich in most precious codices, it suffered grave damage in the Second World War), etc.

b) The libraries of the seminaries are for the most part reserved for the professors and clerics of the diocesan or regional seminaries: some, however, are also accessible to the public. Compared with those of modest size, there are others that are very rich either in the number of volumes or in the value of their manuscript codices. Worthy of mention are the libraries of Aosta (it counts 250 manuscripts, 150 incunabula, about 25,000 volumes), of Arezzo (established in 1640; it possesses 800 manuscripts, 50 incunabula, about 16,000 volumes), of Casale Monferrato (founded in 1738; it has 220 manuscripts, 160 incunabula, about 30,000 volumes), of Cremona (created in 1592; it counts 200 manuscripts and 200 original parchments, 38 incunabula, 20,000 volumes), of Gorizia (established in the second half of the 18th century; it possesses 5 manuscripts, 10 incunabula and about 30,000 volumes, among which are some very rare Slavic editions), of Mondovì (founded in the 16th century, it has 150 manuscripts, 70 incunabula, 60,000 volumes), Piacenza (two seminary libraries: that of the episcopal seminary, with about 40,000 volumes, and that of the famous Alberoni college, which functions as a major seminary, with 20 incunabula and about 80,000 volumes), Pisa (called "Cateriniana", it was founded in 1452; it numbers about 200 manuscripts, Greek and Latin, of the greatest interest, many incunabula and more than 30,000 volumes), Turin (created in 1752; it possesses 70 manuscripts, 35 incunabula and 60,000 volumes), Treviso (dedicated to Pope Pius X; although it dates back only to the 19th century, it already counts 60,000 volumes), Venegono (it is the library of the seminary of Milan, to which that of Monza has been united; besides some manuscripts it has about 40,000 volumes), Vicenza (founded around 1740; it counts 150 manuscripts, 37 incunabula, 30,000 volumes), etc.

c) The archiepiscopal and episcopal libraries are generally not of great importance, also because the most substantial ones have gone to enrich the holdings of other libraries, especially those of the seminaries. Cited as examples are those of Benevento (about 15,000 volumes), of Bologna (124 manuscripts, and 13,000 volumes), of Brindisi (83 manuscripts, 132 incunabula, about 10,000 volumes; it is famous for its collection of geographical atlases), of Taranto (2 incunabula, about 12,000 volumes), of Trent (2 manuscripts, 19,000 volumes; it is of very ancient origin), of Udine (628 manuscripts, 139 incunabula, 22,000 volumes), etc.

d) Equally limited is the value of the parish libraries and those of modern religious Congregations: nevertheless they are at times notable for some precious relic, and, since almost all of them were constituted ex novo, they abound in recent publications. A separate category is represented by those libraries which, although they were absorbed by the State at the time of the suppression of the monastic Orders, and therefore cannot properly be called ecclesiastical libraries, are nevertheless entrusted to the various religious Congregations for the management and custody of the book material. Such are the libraries of the great abbeys, today erected as national monuments (for these, reference is made to the individual entries or to those of the respective dioceses).

e) Of great importance, both as regards the number of volumes and as regards the selection of material, are the libraries of the universities or of the religious institutes of culture. For the sake of brevity, only a few are cited here: the library of the Gregorian University, reconstituted ex novo after the taking over of the old one by the State, which since 1928 has already been enriched by 200,000 volumes; the library of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milan, belonging to the Institute of Higher Studies "G. Toniolo" and on deposit at the University: founded in 1921, it counts 460,484 volumes and 1,785 periodicals; the library of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, begun in 1909, rich in 100,000 volumes concerning Oriental studies in general and Sacred Scripture in particular; the libraries of the Pontifical Institute for Oriental Studies (60,000 volumes), of the Pontifical Lateran Athenaeum (90,000 volumes, besides manuscripts and incunabula), of the Pontifical Athenaeum "Angelicum", of the Order of Preachers (more than 60,000 volumes), of the Pontifical Athenaeum "Antonianum" of the Friars Minor (about 30,000 volumes), of the Institute of Christian Archaeology (15,000 volumes), of the Congregation and the Athenaeum "De propaganda fide", divided into two sections, one dogmatic-historical, with its seat at the Janiculum (25,000 volumes), and one missiological, at the S. Congregation (15,000 volumes), of the "Civiltà Cattolica" (more than 200,000 volumes, 45,000 pamphlets and more than 1,000 periodicals), etc.

5. Popular and private libraries

Popular libraries have a character of wide dissemination and are continually increasing; private ones, on the other hand, sometimes rise to great importance because of the preciousness of the relics contained in them: one need only think, for example, of the collections of the private library of the Marquises Malvezzi de' Medici of Bologna; of the illuminated codices and the 30,000 volumes of value of the Olechki library of Florence; of the 230 incunabula, the rare editions, the 30,000 volumes of the Melzi library, today of the Marquises Meli Lupi di Soragna, in Milan; of the 25,000 volumes and the priceless relics of the library of the Counts Leopardi at Recanati, etc.

T. M. Guarnaschelli and E. Valenziani (Indici e cataloghi, new series, I), of which 2 vols. have appeared so far (I: A-B, Rome 1943; II: C-F, ibid. 1948).

V. THE PRINCIPAL FOREIGN LIBRARIES

For libraries outside Italian national territory, no systematic picture can be offered, since their organization varies from country to country, and the importance of the great collections, closely tied to the cultural history of peoples, is not the same in every region. Nevertheless, almost all states today boast a national library of their own, not only on the European continent but also in the Americas and Asia. They represent the most important collections of bibliographic material relating to the history, geography, and economy of individual countries. The principal ones are:

The Bibliothèque Nationale of Paris, the oldest to have had such a character in Europe. It traces back to the private libraries of the Carolingian kings, but it does not present a character of continuity until the 14th century, when John the Good left his collection to Charles V (1364), by whom it was placed in the Louvre. It received important accessions under Louis IX, Charles VIII, Louis XII (during whose reign some precious relics of Petrarch's library entered the library), Francis I (who called the humanist G. Budé to direct the library, and he merged it with the new collection of Fontainebleau, where the library had its seat until the second half of the 17th century, when it was transported to Paris), and Louis XIV. In 1736 Louis XV opened it to the public; in 1763 the precious holdings of the suppressed libraries of the Jesuits flowed into it; in 1789, as a result of the French Revolution, it acquired the character of a "national library"; in 1810 Napoleon I, who had brought there very many relics by plundering the principal European libraries (a large part of the booty was, however, taken back from France after Waterloo), consolidated its patrimony with appropriate legislative provisions; in 1930 the Mazarine Library was annexed to it (founded by Cardinal Mazarin in 1643, it counted at the time of its incorporation 250,000 volumes, 1,900 incunabula, 5,800 manuscripts). Its patrimony, before the last world war, consisted of 125,000 manuscripts, over 4 million printed works, and 500,000 volumes of periodicals. The printed catalogue is extremely important, constituting one of the most precious works of reference for any field of study.

The British Museum Library, of London, whose nucleus consists of the very rich private collection of Sir Hans Sloane (3,516 manuscripts, 50,000 volumes), purchased from the Crown in 1753. On this occasion, which constitutes the act of birth of the British Museum, the collections of Robert Cotton and of Robert and Edward Harley, already the property of the State since 1700, were united with the collection. Having grown through successive accessions, the library received a very great impetus through the work of a librarian of Italian origin, Antonio Panizzi (1797-1879), who devoted his efforts to it from 1856 to 1866, laying the foundations for the scientific classification of the material. Despite the damage suffered in the Second World War (approximately 250,000 volumes were destroyed by fire), the library of the British Museum counts over 4 million printed works (the shelving has a length of 118 km.), about 10,000 incunabula, over 54,000 manuscripts, and 2,400 papyri. The Oriental collection is extremely important, rich in 16,000 manuscripts and over 120,000 printed works. The Index of incunabula that R. Proctor published in London, in 4 volumes, between 1898 and 1899, is famous throughout the world.

The Gosudarstvennaja publizija biblioteka (State Public Library), of Leningrad, formerly the imperial library of St. Petersburg, begun by Catherine the Great with the purchase of the collection of the counts Zaliski and of the minister Dubrovskij. From 1918, the year of the Russian Revolution, its patrimony has nearly doubled, and before the last world war it counted about 5 million volumes and 331,100 manuscripts.

The Preussische Staatsbibliothek, formerly the Kaiserlichkönigliche Bibliothek, of Berlin. It originated from the private collection of the Elector Frederick William, who opened it to the public in 1661. In 1782 it was transferred to a new seat, specially erected by Frederick the Great; having been enriched with successive accessions, in 1914, under the direction of the great historian Adolf von Harnack, it was transported into the grandiose building that housed it until the beginning of the last world war. At that date it counted about 3 million volumes and almost 63,000 manuscripts.

The Nationalbibliothek of Vienna (formerly the Kaiserlichkönigliche Hofbibliothek), founded by Maximilian I in 1493. In the 18th century it incorporated the religious libraries, in addition to the ancient university and civic libraries of Vienna, and was further enriched over the course of the centuries with various private collections of the Habsburgs. In 1919, having passed under the control of the Ministry of Public Education, it lost the title of royal library and assumed that of national. Its patrimony amounted in 1940 to about 1,500,000 volumes, 9,000 incunabula, over 30,000 manuscripts, and about 60,000 autographs.

The Verejná a univerzní Knihovna (public and university library) of Prague, whose foundation is connected with that of the University, which took place in 1348. Before the Second World War it counted about 900,000 volumes.

The Bibliothèque nationale suisse (Schweizerische Landesbibliothek), of Bern, opened in 1895; it possesses about 700,000 volumes and 1,200 periodicals.

The Biblioteca nacional, of Madrid, opened by Philip V in 1712 with the title of "royal library", which it kept until 1836. Having been enriched with various accessions, especially following the suppression of the monasteries, before the civil war it counted 30,172 manuscripts, 101,200 prints, 2,412 incunabula, 1,400,000 volumes, and 30,000 periodicals.

The Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, of Brussels, constituted by royal decree of 19 June 1837 and arising from the union of three conspicuous collections: the collection of Charles van Hulthem of Ghent, the so-called library of Burgundy (1843), into which the famous manuscripts of the Bollandists' library had already flowed, and the civic library of Brussels. Its patrimony in 1940 was around 850,000 volumes, about 500,000 periodicals, and 31,421 manuscripts.

The Koninklijke bibliotheek (royal library), of The Hague, founded in 1798. Before the Second World War its patrimony was about 1 million volumes, between manuscripts and printed works.

The Kongelige bibliotek (royal library), of Copenhagen, founded by Frederick III of Denmark and enriched with successive accessions, especially in the 18th century, under the reign of Christian VII. It counted in 1940 about 900,000 volumes, 4,000 incunabula, and 30,000 manuscripts.

The Kungliga biblioteket (royal library), of Stockholm, whose original nucleus goes back to King Gustav Vasa (1523-60). It boasts various precious manuscript relics (a silver Evangelary that carries a pre-Jerome Latin version, a French translation of Marco Polo's Milione, a collection of Chinese manuscripts, etc.) and printed works (the almost complete collection of Elzevir editions). Before the Second World War it possessed 12,000 manuscripts and over 600,000 volumes.

The Kongelige Universitetsbiblioteket (royal university library), of Oslo, founded at the same time as the University in 1811 by Frederick VI of Norway and Denmark. Before the Second World War it possessed over 5,000 manuscripts, 271 incunabula, and about 600,000 volumes.

The library of the University of Helsinki, founded in 1640. It counted in 1940 over 600,000 volumes and collections of manuscripts, geographical maps, and musical works.

Outside Europe, the most important library is without doubt the Library of Congress of Washington, founded in 1800 as the library of the two Houses of the United States. In 1897, having moved from the Capitol to its present seat, it began the arrangement and publication of the grandiose catalogue, which constitutes one of the highest achievements of bibliographic science (v. CLASSIFICAZIONE, sistemi di). Its patrimony is around 5 million volumes.

Also worthy of remembrance are the Biblioteca nacional de México (ca. 300,000 volumes and some precious manuscripts), the Biblioteca nacional of Buenos Aires (ca. 90,000 manuscripts and 200,000 volumes), the Biblioteca nacional do Rio de Janeiro (120,000 manuscripts and ca. 500,000 volumes), and, in Asia, the national libraries of Beijing (8,000 rolls of manuscripts, 30,000 Chinese incunabula, 85,000 volumes in European languages and 500,000 in Chinese) and of Tokyo (ca. 700,000 volumes in Chinese and Japanese, 130,000 in European languages and several manuscripts, before the Second World War).

Besides these, which have the character of national libraries, particular mention is deserved, for the vastness of their holdings or for the tradition to which they are linked, by other libraries, such as in England the libraries of the University of Oxford (Bodleian Library, created in 1410 with the holdings of the collection of Thomas de Cobham, bishop of Worcester, d. 1327; almost vanished in 1550, it was reconstituted by Thomas Bodley in 1602. Before the last conflict it counted ca. 40,000 manuscripts and 1,500,000 volumes), of the University of Cambridge (founded in 1424; its substantial collections boast some pieces of great value, such as the Codex Bezae of the Gospels and Acts, a manuscript of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica, from the first half of the 8th century, etc.); in Ireland the library of Trinity College (founded by Queen Elizabeth in 1591; it counts ca. 500,000 volumes, 548 incunabula, 2,190 manuscripts); in France the library of the Arsenal in Paris (formerly the private library of A.R. de Voyer d'Argenson, marquis of Paulmy; it counted in 1934, 840,000 vols., 2,800 incunabula, 11,639 manuscripts, 6,745 periodicals) and the university library of Strasbourg (founded in 1531, completely destroyed on the night of 24 Aug. 1870 by a fire and then reconstituted ex novo, it possessed, before the war of 1939-45, 4,759 manuscripts, 5,000 among papyri and Ostraka, 1,900 incunabula, and over 1,700,000 volumes); in Germany the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek of Munich (founded by Albert V of Bavaria in the second half of the 16th century; it possessed in 1939 a patrimony of ca. 50,000 manuscripts and over 1,800,000 volumes), the library of the University of Göttingen (opened in 1737; its patrimony amounted, before the Second World War, to ca. 9,000 manuscripts, 5,000 incunabula, 900,000 volumes), that of the University of Leipzig (founded in 1543 with the holdings confiscated from the Dominican library of Pauliner Kloster; it counted in 1939 ca. 950,000 volumes, 3,000 incunabula, 6,000 manuscripts); in Greece the library called the Gennadiou (from its founder John Gennadius), in Athens (opened to the public in 1926, it had, before the last conflict, a patrimony of 200 manuscripts and ca. 30,000 volumes); in Poland, the Jagiellonian library in Kraków (founded in 1400; the latest data prior to the Second World War, are 570,000 volumes, 3,020 incunabula, 8,600 manuscripts); in Russia the Odeska tsentralna naukova biblioteka (government library of Odessa, founded in 1829; it counted before 1940 ca. 2,500,000 volumes), and the Publichnaja biblioteka Sojuza S.S.R. imeni V. I. Lenina (Lenin public library, of Moscow, with ca. 5 million volumes and over 41,000 manuscripts); in Spain the library of the Escorial (v.) and in Portugal that of the University of Coimbra (the first mention dates back to 1541; its patrimony is ca. 2,500 manuscripts and 500,000 volumes); in Sweden the library of the University of Uppsala (founded by King Gustavus Adolphus in 1620; it counts 17,000 manuscripts and ca. 700,000 volumes); in the United States the Boston public Library (founded in 1852 by Prof. G. Ticknor, moved to its present seat in 1895, enlarged in 1918; about thirty associated libraries depend on it, which bring the overall patrimony to the figure of ca. 1,700,000 volumes), the Harvard University Library (created in 1858; it counts ca. 2 million volumes; with the associated libraries the patrimony rises to 3,700,000 volumes), the New York public Library (formally founded in 1895, it possesses over 3,500,000 volumes), the Columbia university Library (created in 1754, it counts 1,300,000 volumes), the Yale university Library (founded in 1701; with the dependent libraries it possesses ca. 2,500,000 volumes), etc.

For the libraries attached to the great abbeys or dependent on religious Orders, v. the entries of the individual monasteries. - See Pl. XCVIII.

Alessandro Pratesi