Vatican Library

The Pre-Lateran period, comprising the initial days of the library, dating from the earliest days of the Church. Only a handful of volumes survive from this period, though some are very significant.

The Lateran era began when the library moved to the Lateran Palace and lasted until the end of the 13th century and the reign of Pope Boniface VIII, who died in 1303, by which time he possessed one of the most notable collections of illuminated manuscripts in Europe. However, in that year, the Lateran Palace was burnt and the collection plundered by Philip IV of France.[4]

The Avignon period was during the Avignon Papacy, when seven successive popes resided in Avignon, France. This period saw great growth in book collection and record-keeping by the popes in Avignon, between the death of Boniface and the 1370s when the papacy returned to Rome.

The Pre-Vatican period ranged from about 1370 to 1447. The library was scattered during this time, with parts in Rome, Avignon, and elsewhere. Pope Eugenius IV possessed 340 books by the time of his death.[5]

In 1451, bibliophile Pope Nicholas V sought to establish a public library at the Vatican, in part to re-establish Rome as a destination for scholarship.[6][7] Nicholas combined some 350 Greek, Latin and Hebrew codices inherited from his predecessors with his own collection and extensive acquisitions, among them manuscripts from the imperial Library of Constantinople. Pope Nicholas also expanded his collection by employing Italian and Byzantine scholars to translate the Greek classics into Latin for his library.[7] The knowledgeable pope already encouraged the inclusion of pagan classics.[1] Nicolas was important in saving many of the Greek works and writings during this time period that he had collected while traveling and acquired from others.

In 1455, the collection had grown to 1200 books, of which 400 were in Greek.[8]

Nicholas died in 1455. In 1475 his successor Pope Sixtus IV founded the Palatine Library.[7] During his papacy, acquisitions were made in "theology, philosophy and artistic literature".[4] The number of manuscripts is variously counted as 3,500 in 1475[4] or 2,527 in 1481, when librarian Bartolomeo Platina produced a signed listing.[9] At the time it was the largest collection of books in the Western world.[8]

Pope Julius II commissioned the expansion of the building.[7] Around 1587, Pope Sixtus V commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to construct a new building for the library, which is still used today. After this, it became known as the Vatican Library.[7]

During the Counter-Reformation, access to the library's collections was limited following the introduction of the Index of banned books. Scholars' access to the library was restricted, particularly Protestant scholars. Restrictions were lifted during the course of the 17th century, and Pope Leo XIII was to formally reopen the library to scholars in 1883.[6][7]

In 1756, the priest Antonio Piaggio, curator of ancient manuscripts at the Library used a machine he had invented[10] to unroll the first Herculaneum papyri, an operation which took him months.[11]

In 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte arrested Pope Pius VII and had the contents of the library seized and removed to Paris. They were returned in 1817, three years after Napoleon's defeat and abdication.[7]

The library's first major revitalization project took place in the period between the two World Wars at the instigation of Pope Pius XI, himself a scholar and former librarian, with the cooperation of librarians from around the world. Until this point in time, while it had drawn on the expertise of numerous experts, the Vatican Library was dangerously lacking in organization and its junior librarians were undertrained.[12] Foreign researchers, particularly Americans, noticed how inadequate the facilities were for such an important collection. Several American organizations, including the American Library Association and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, offered to assist in implementing a modern cataloguing system.[13] Along with this, librarians from the Vatican Library were invited to visit several libraries in the United States to receive training on the functioning of a modern library. They visited the Library of Congress, and libraries in Princeton, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, Chicago, Champaign, Toronto, and Ann Arbor. Once back in Rome, a reorganization plan was implemented. The main goals were to create a summary index by author of each manuscript, and likewise a catalogue for the incunabula. Once the project was completed, the Vatican Library was one of the most modern in all of Europe. This joint effort highlighted the importance of international relationships in the field of librarianship and led to the founding in 1929 of the International Federation of Library Associations, still at work.[12]

In 1992 the library had almost 2 million catalogued items.[6]

Among a number of thefts from the Library committed in modern times, in 1995 art history teacher Anthony Melnikas from Ohio State University stole three leaves from a medieval manuscript once owned by Francesco Petrarch.[14][15] One of the stolen leaves contains an exquisite miniature of a farmer threshing grain. A fourth leaf from an unknown source was also discovered in his possession by U.S. Customs agents. Melnikas was trying to sell the pages to an art dealer, who then alerted the librarian director.[15]

In the Sala di Consultazione or main reference room of the Vatican Library looms a statue of St Thomas Aquinas (c. 1910), sculpted by Cesare Aureli. A second version of this statue (c. 1930) stands under the entrance portico of the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.[lower-alpha 1][23]

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  The Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library.
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  Golden Rose stored in the Vatican Library.
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  Ceiling fresco of the Sistine Hall, photograph by Jean-Pol Grandmont

The collection was originally organized through notebooks used to index the manuscripts. As the collection grew to more than a few thousand, shelf lists were used.[7] The first modern catalogue system was put in place under Father Franz Ehrle between 1927 and 1939, using the Library of Congress card catalogue system. Ehrle also set up the first program to take photographs of important works or rare works.[7] The library catalogue was further updated by Rev. Leonard E. Boyle when it was computerized in the early 1990s.[7]

Bookcase in the Vatican Library

Historically, during the Renaissance era, most books were not shelved but stored in wooden benches, which had tables attached to them. Each bench was dedicated to a specific topic. The books were chained to these benches, and if a reader took out a book, the chain remained attached to it. Until the early 17th century, academics were also allowed to borrow books. For important books, the pope himself would issue a reminder slip.[7] Privileges to use the library could be withdrawn for breaking the house rules, for instance by climbing over the tables. Most famously Pico Della Mirandola lost the right to use the library when he published a book on theology that the Papal curia did not approve of.[24] In the 1760s, a bill issued by Clement XIII heavily restricted access to the library's holdings.[1]

The Vatican Library can be accessed by 200 scholars at a time,[25] and it sees 4,000 to 5,000 scholars a year, mostly academics doing post-graduate research.[21]

The Abyss of Hell, coloured drawing on parchment by Sandro Botticelli (1480s)

Wandalbert von Prüm, July, Martyrologium (c860)

Notable manuscripts in the library include: Illuminated manuscripts:

• Barberini Gospels
• Gelasian Sacramentary, one of the oldest books on Christian liturgy
• Joshua Roll
• Lorsch Gospels, an illuminated gospel book written and illustrated from 778 to 820, which is spread up between various museums. The carved ivory rear cover and the Gospels of Luke and John are kept in the Vatican Library.
• Menologion of Basil II[29]
• Vatican Croatian Prayer Book
• Vergilius Vaticanus

• Vergilius Romanus, Virgil's Aeneid
• Codex Vaticanus Ottobonianus Latinus 1829, an important 14th-century manuscript of Catullus' poems
• Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868, a 9th-century facsimile of Terence's comedies[30]
• Parts of Euclid's Elements, most notable Book I, Proposition 47, one of the oldest Greek texts on the Pythagorean Theorem[1]

• Codex Borgia, an extensive Mesoamerican manuscript that depicts mythology and foundational rituals in the hieroglyphic texts and iconography made of animal skins.
• Codex Vat. Arabo 368, the sole manuscript of the Hadith Bayad wa Riyad, an Arabic love story[31]
• Codex Vaticanus 3738, the Codex Ríos,[32] an accordion folded Italian translation of a Spanish colonial-era manuscript, with copies of the Aztec paintings from the original Codex Telleriano-Remensis, believed to be written by the Dominican friar Ríos in 1566.
• De arte venandi cum avibus, a Latin treatise on falconry in the format of a two-column parchment codex of 111 folios written in the 1240s.
• Borgiani Siriaci 175, a manuscript scroll of the Diwan Abatur, a Mandaean text[33]

Texts:

• Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3256, four leaves of the Vergilius Augusteus[34]
• Codex Vaticano Rossi 215, fragments of the Rossi Codex[35]
• Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, one of the oldest extant Bibles in Greek language
• Libri Carolini
• Vaticanus Graecus 1001, the original manuscript of the Secret History[36]
• One fragment of Heliand and three fragments of the Old Saxon Genesis comprise the Palatinus Latinus 1447.[37]

The library contains over 100 Quran manuscripts from various collections, cataloged by the Italian Jewish linguist Giorgio Levi Della Vida: Vaticani arabi 73; Borgiani arabi 25; Barberiniani orientali 11; Rossiani 2. The largest manuscript in the library, Vat. Ar. 1484, measures 540x420mm. The smallest, Vat. Ar. 924, is a circle of 45mm diameter preserved in an octagonal case.[38]

In 2012, plans were announced to digitize, in collaboration with the Bodleian Library, a million pages of material from the Vatican Library.

On 20 March 2014, the Holy See announced that NTT Data Corporation and the library had concluded an agreement to digitize approximately 3,000 of the library's manuscripts within four years.[39] NTT is donating the equipment and technicians, estimated to be worth 18 million Euros.[40] It noted that there is the possibility of subsequently digitizing another 79,000 of the library's holdings. These will be high-definition images available on the library's Internet site. Storage for the holdings will be on a three petabyte server provided by EMC.[41] It is expected that the initial phase will take four years.[42]

DigiVatLib is the name of the Vatican Library's digital library service. It provides free access to the Vatican Library's digitized collections of manuscripts and incunabula.[43]

The scanning of documents is impacted by the material used to produce the texts. Books using gold and silver in the illuminations require special scanning equipment.[25] Digital copies are being served using the CIFS protocol, from network-attached storage hardware by Dell EMC.[18]

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  Gospel of Matthew in Persian, the first Persian manuscript to enter the Vatican Library
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  Manuscript page with the five-voice "Kyrie" of the Missa Virgo Parens Christi by Jacques Barbireau
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  Mappamondo Borgiano, also known as "Tavola di Velletri", consisting of two copper tablets (1430)
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  Month of May from in the Chronography of 354 by the 4th century calligrapher Filocalus
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  Anton Raphael Mengs, The Triumph of History over Time (Allegory of the Museum Clementinum), ceiling fresco in the Camera dei Papiri, Vatican Library
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  Illumination from the legend of Sain Emerich of Hungary's, c. 1335
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  Battle between David and Goliath, Book of Psalms, c. 1059
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  The ivory panels from the back cover of Codex Aureus of Lorsch

The Vatican Apostolic Archive, located in Vatican City, is the central archive for all of the acts promulgated by the Holy See, as well as the state papers, correspondence, papal account books,[44] and many other documents which the church has accumulated over the centuries. In the 17th century, under the orders of Pope Paul V, the Archives were separated from the Vatican Library, where scholars had some very limited access to them, and remained absolutely closed to outsiders until 1881, when Pope Leo XIII opened them to researchers, more than a thousand of whom now examine its documents each year.[45]

The Vatican Film Library in St. Louis, Missouri is the only collection, outside the Vatican itself, of microfilms of more than 37,000 works from the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, the Vatican Library in Europe. It is located in the Pius XII Library on the campus of Saint Louis University.[46] The library was created by Lowrie J. Daly (1914–2000), with funding from the Knights of Columbus.[47] The goal was to make Vatican and other documents more available to researchers in North America.[48]

Microfilming of Vatican manuscripts began in 1951, and according to the library's website, was the largest microfilming project that had been undertaken up to that date.[49] The library opened in 1953, and moved to the St. Louis University campus, in the Pius XII Memorial Library, in 1959. The first librarian was Charles J. Ermatinger, who served until 2000. As of 2007, the library has microfilmed versions of over 37,000 manuscripts, with material in Greek, Latin, Arabic, Hebrew and Ethiopic, as well as several more common Western European languages. There are reproductions of many works from the Biblioteca Palatina and Biblioteca Cicognara at the Vatican, as well as Papal letter registers from the Archivio Segreto Vaticano (Vatican Secret Archives) from the 9th to 16th centuries, in the series Registra Vaticana and Registra Supplicationium.[50]

(P) Indicates time spent as pro-librarian. this is the role of acting librarian, often a librarian who is not a cardinal.[53]

• Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church - Miranda, Salvador. "The Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church". Florida International University Libraries.