THE VATICAN LIBRARY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 124, 10 September 1875, Page 13

THE VATICAN LIBRARY.

The Vatican Library at Rome, founded A.». 1447* has ever been an object of curiosity and mystery. Perhaps such, appellation as the magnificent can be applied to it more justly than to any other collection in Europe, not so much on account of its extent as because |of its value. The library occupies three apartments : the antei room, the double gallery, and the great hall. The vestibule con* ' tains Chinese works relating to geography and chronology, together j with two columns bearing inscriptions. The anteroom is appropriated to the two keepers . of the library and the secretaries or I interpreters, usually seven in number who speak the principal languages of Europe and who attend for the convenience of learned foreigners. In this apartment there are also accommodated those engaged in translating. from the Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Greek and Latin languages. Passing from the anteroom, the visitor enters a double gallery of two hundred and twenty feet in length, on either side of which are arranged the Greek and Latin manuscripts of the ancient Papal collection, which strangers at first conceive to be the whole library ; but at its extremity there opens up an almost interminable perspective, another gallery of about one thousand English feet in length. These galleries and apartments are all vaulted and painted with varied effect by painters of different eras and great talents, and constitute the receptacle of this noble library. The books are nearly all kept in closed .cases, so that in the Vatican the stranges seeks in vain for that imposing display of volumes which he may, have seen and admired in other libraries. The following are a few works of the greatest antiquity and value : the Virgil of the fourth and fifth century, written in uncial or capital letters, and illuminated with the most curious miniatures, is the finest in the world. A Terence, eqxially ancient and quite as elegant, and another not so old, dating from the ninth century, but illuminated with ancient masks. There is also deposited in this vast treasure-house a palimpsest containing the treatise of Cicero, "De Republica," supposed fa b§

of the third century and in the form of books. This and the Virgil are considered the oldest manuscripts in existence. Here also is one of the three great Biblical manuscripts which contend with each other for the greatest antiquity— the "Codex Vaticanus." It contains the Old and New Testaments, with various omissions or chasms, and is written in capital letters. Each page has three columns, except in some places of the Old Testament. It is placed usually ab the middle of the third or'the forth century. This great Biblical and textual authodty was removed by the French Commissioners to the Imperial Library of Paris in 1797, together with five hundred and one other mauuscripts, among which were the famous Virgil, Terrence, Homer, Caesar, and Piantua of the Vatican, besides other rare books. But in 1814 and 1815 these were all restored. Among the rare manuscripts of Hebrew Bibles is a very large Hebrew Bible formerly in the library of the Dukes of Urbino ; for which, though it is so ponderous as to require two men to carry it, Venetian Jews are said to have offered its weight in gold. A Greek manuscript of the Acts of the Apostles, written in gold letters, and presented to' lnnocent VIII. by the Queen of Cypress, is worthy of note. The " Annals" of Baronius, in twelve volumes written with his own hand ; a copy of Dante's " Divina Comedia," in the handwriting of Boccacio, and sent by him to Petvarch, with his corrections ; and another autograph of Tasso, including a sketch of his " Gieursalemme Liberata," written when nineteen years of age, are all to be found in this autograph collection. To this list might be added Henry VILL's love letters to Anne Boleyn, nine in French and eight in English. Here, also, is Pynson's dedication copy, on vellum (London, 1521), of the same sovereign s treatise against Luther, which won for the king the title of " Defender of the Faith."—' Ladies' Eepository '