The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-01-31
THE VATICAN LIBRARY
ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS IN
THE WoRLD-PREcIoUs COL
LECTION OF PRICELESS MANU-
scRIPTs-THE FOCUS OF EURO.
PEAN SCHOLARSHIP.

PEAN SCHOLARSHIP.
The library of the Vatican is the
most famous in the world on account
of it's ancient manuscripts of which it
possesses some thirty-five thousand. It'll
owes it's first organization to Pope
Nicholas ", to whom the secular
world is also indebted for preserving
the classical masterpieces of Rome,
since he was the first to give the art
of printing it's official recognition
The Vatican library was, indeed, one
of the results of the discovery of print
ing, and it now contains four thousand
five hundred books which were print
ed in the fifteenth century. Pope Mich
olas was the first sovereign in Europe
to found a collection of precious and
important books, and what this has
meant for the history of the world and
civilization is easily appreciate. Yet,
of few Popes is so little known, and
it was, indeed, not till some genera
tons after his death that the Popes
themselves realized what treasure
they possessed in the manuscripts left
to their care Pope Sixtus w placed
the precious archives in the Borgia
rooms, gave the library a definite en-
dowment and appointed Platina, the
famous historian of the Popes, at its
head. Sixtus has been wrongly termed
the founder of the library; he was in
reality only it's re-founder.
The present splendid building was
erected in 1888. 1t has grown not only
by the purchases of successive Popes,
but also by the absorption of various
libraries Napoleon, with his custom
airy rapacity, carried off in 1898 nearly
500 precious manuscripts and trans
ferred them to the Louvre; these were,
however restored by ordinance of the
Congress of Vienna in 1915. Plus TX
added 10000 books to the collection in
1885, these being bought from the es-
tate of Cardinal Mai. In 1902, Leo
| XIII purchased the Barberini for one
hundred thousand dollars, while Plus
x has supervised the occasional aug
mentations made during his reign.
The Vatican library may be divided
into the New, or Leonine, library on
ground floor, and the Old on the first
floor The actual library is in charge
of a senior scrittore (writer), general
ly Monsignore. In the Sistine gal
lery, on the first floor, are housed all
the famous manuscripts and printed
books on the ground floor. The Ii
brary of the archives is directly under
the supervision of Cardinal, and is
separated from the new library by a
doorway The entire walls are lined
with painted presses in which the
manuscripts relating to the story of
the Church are kept hidden away
from sight.
| Among the most famous manuscript
treasures of the Vatican may be men
toned the Codex Vaticanus, a Bible
of the early part of the fourth CEN
fury, the celebrated Virgil of the Vati-
can, a Plutarch with notes by Grotius,
a Seneca of the fourteenth century,
with comments by an English Domini-
can, a Hebrew Bible for which the
Jews of Venice offered it's weight in
gold, several manuscripts of Luther, a
manuscript of Dante, part of very an.
cient Bible known as the "Codex Pur-
purcus," written in silver upon purple
parchment, but with the name OF
Jesus always written in gold, a letter
from the King of Burmah to Plus TX
enclosed in an elephants tooth, letters
of King Henry the Eighth to Anne
Boleyn, and copy Of the work against
Luther which won for Henry the title
of Defender of the Faith,' as it is
called in Latin "The Assertion of the
Seven Sacramento, against Martin Lu
ther;" it was printed on vellum in Lon
don in 1921 with Henry's signature
Finally there is book by st. Thomas
Aquinas containing corrections made
by the illustrious author himself
whose handwriting, it is interesting tc
note, was almost as bad as that oil
Napoleon. These are, of course, only
a few Of the best known among the
vast number of manuscripts.
AS one may readily suppose, so con
summate and thorough scholar as
Leo XIII did not allow his reign tc
pass without looking to the needs Of
the library. His intention was tt
make the Vatican library the focus Of
European scholarship; no collection
of manuscripts can compare with it
those of the British Museum and the
Bibliotheque Rationale being far be
hind in the matter of treasure NJ
adequate history of the Middle Age!
could be written without access to the
Vatican's, and consequently Leo's de
termination to open the library tt
scholarly research has had a wonder
full effect upon history written in oul
own times. The so-named Leonint
rooms, six in number, are now opel
to students from all parts of the worlC
who have responsible and authorize
tive work to execute Here are all tn,
printed books with new reference Il
brary of Biblical commentaries, Prot
estant as well as Catholic; most OF tn,
students are priests, and these ar,
nearly all young men. The shelves
are of the open-access order All tn,
English-written Catholic books pub
lished during the reign of Leo XIII ar
housed in the rooms. The Empero
Williams gift of works is also on thu
shelves, as are the national chronicle
of nearly every country in the world
The department of the archives, o
chronicles of the Popes and thei
f, times, is also on the ground floor