The Care of Books Part 32

MARK, FLORENCE, AND AT MONTE OLIVETO. VATICAN LIBRARY OF SIXTUS IV. DUCAL LIBRARY AT URBINO. MEDICEAN LIBRARY, FLORENCE. SYSTEM OF CHAINING THERE USED. CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIEVAL LIBRARIES. NAMES OF MEDIEVAL BOOKCASES AND BOOKSHELVES.

While the "stall-system" was being generally adopted in England and in France, a different plan was being developed in Italy. It consisted in a return to the "lectern-system," with the addition of a shelf below the lectern, on which the books lay on their sides when not wanted; and an ingenious combination of a seat for the reader with the desk and shelf.

The earliest library fitted up in this manner that I have been able to discover is at Cesena, a city of north Italy between Forli and Ravenna. It is practically in its original condition.

In the fifteenth century Cesena was governed by the powerful family of Malatesta, one of whom, Domenico Malatesta Novello, built the library in 1452, and placed it under the charge of the convent of S. Francesco. Two burghers were a.s.sociated with the Friars in this duty. The library was always public. It was designed by Matteo Nuzio of Fano, a celebrated architect of the day, as we learn from an inscription originally inserted into the wall on the right of the door of entrance, but now placed inside the library:

MATHEVS. NVTIVS.

FANENSI EX VRBE. CREATVS.

DEDALVS ALTER. OPVS.

TANTVM. DEDVXIT. AD VNGVEM.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figs. 90, 91. Ground-plan and section of Library at Cesena.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 92. General view of the Library at Cesena.

From a photograph.]

The general plan and arrangement will be readily understood from the ground-plan (fig. 90), and the longitudinal section (fig. 91), copied on a reduced scale from those given by the learned Giuseppe Maria Muccioli, who published a catalogue of the MSS. in the library in 1780[356], and also from the general view of the interior (fig. 92). It is a long narrow building, 133 ft. 4 in. long, by 34 ft. broad[357], standing east and west, so that its windows face north and south. It is on the first floor, being built over some rooms which once belonged to the convent, and is entered at the west end through a lofty marble doorway. Internally it is divided into three aisles, of which the central is the narrowest, by two rows of ten fluted marble columns. Against the side-walls and partly engaged in them, are two rows of similar columns. The aisles are divided by plain quadripart.i.te vaults, resting partly on the central columns, partly on those engaged in the side-walls, into eleven bays, each lighted by two windows (fig. 91). These aisles are about 12 ft. wide. The central aisle, 8 ft. 3 in. wide between the columns, has a plain barrel vault, extending from end to end of the building.

The influence of the Renaissance may readily be detected in the ornamentation of the columns, but traces of medieval forms still linger in the room. If the central alley were wider it might be taken for the nave of a basilica.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 93. Bookcases at west end of south side of Library, Cesena.]

There are 29 bookcases in each aisle. Between each pair of cases there is a wooden floor, raised 3 in. above the general level of the room; and there is an interval of 2 ft. 3 in. between the cases and the wall, so that access may be readily obtained to them from either end. The room is paved with unglazed tiles.

The westernmost bay is empty (fig. 90), being used as a vestibule, and the first bookcase, if I may be allowed the expression, on each side, is really not a bookcase but a seat (fig. 93)[358].

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 94. Part of a bookcase at Cesena to shew the system of chaining.]

The construction of these cases is most ingenious, both as regards convenience and economy of s.p.a.ce. If they were designed by the architect who built the room, he must have been a man of no ordinary originality.

Each piece of furniture consists of a desk to lay the books on when wanted for use, a shelf for those not immediately required, and a seat for the reader, whose comfort is considered by a gentle slope in the back (fig.

93). At the end next the central alley is a panel containing the heraldic devices of the Malatesta family.

The princ.i.p.al dimensions of each case are as follows:

Length 10 ft. 2 in.

Height 4 ft. 2 in.

Width of seat 3 ft. 1 in.

Width of foot-rest 11 in.

Height 3 in.

Height of seat from ground 1 ft. 10 in.

Width 1 ft. 4 in.

Distance from desk to desk 4 ft. 1 in.

Angle of slope of desk 45.

The books are still attached to the desks by chains. The bar which carries them is in full view just under the ledge of the desk (fig. 94), inserted into ma.s.sive iron stanchions nailed to the underside of the desk. There are four of these: one at each end of the desk, and one on each side of the central standard. The bar is locked by means of a hasp attached to the standard in which the lock is sunk.

The chains are of a novel form (fig. 95). Each link, about 2 in. long, consists of a solid central portion, which looks as though it were cast round a bent wire, the ends of which project beyond the solid part. The chain is attached to the book by an iron hook screwed into the lower edge of the right-hand board near the back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 95. Piece of a chain, Cesena.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 96. Chained book at Ghent.]

The volume which I figure next (fig. 96), ent.i.tled _Lumen animae seu liber moralitatum_, was printed at Eichstadt in Bavaria, in 1479. M. Ferd.

Vander Haeghen, librarian of Ghent, bought it in Hungary a few years since, and gave it to the library which he so ably directs. The chain is just 24 in. long. The links, of which there are ten, are slightly different from any which I have figured, each link being compressed in the middle so that the two sides touch each other. There is no ring, but a link, rather larger than the rest, is pa.s.sed round the bar. It will be observed that the chain is fastened to the left-hand board, and not to the right-hand board as in Italy. The presence of a t.i.tle written on parchment kept in place by strips of leather, and five bosses of copper, shew that the left-hand board was uppermost on the desk. The position of the chain shews that when it was attached the book was intended to lie on a desk, where the bar must have been in front of, or below, the desk; but there is also a scar on the upper edge of the right-hand board, which shews that at some previous period it lay on a desk of what I may call the Zutphen type, where the bar was above the sloping surface.

With the library at Cesena may be compared that attached to the Dominican Convent of S. Mark at Florence, built in 1441 for Cosmo dei Medici--the first public library in Italy. It is on the first floor, and is approached by a staircase from the cloister. It is 148 ft. long by 34 ft. 6 in.

wide[359], divided into three aisles by two rows of eleven columns. The central aisle, 9 ft. wide between the columns, has a plain barrel vault; the side aisles, 11 ft. wide, have quadripart.i.te vaults. In each of the side-walls there are twelve windows. In all these details the library resembles that at Cesena so closely that I cannot help suspecting that Malatesta or his architect may have copied it.

The original fittings have been removed, but we learn from the catalogue[360] that the books were originally contained in 64 _banchi_, half of which were on the east side and half on the west side of the room.

There was an average of about sixteen books to each _banchus_. The catalogue also mentions a Greek library, which had seven _banchi_ on each side. This was probably a separate room.

There is a similar library at the Benedictine Convent of Monte Oliveto, near Siena, but it is on a much smaller scale. Like the others, it is divided into three aisles by two rows of six columns. The central aisle has a barrel vault, and the side aisles quadripart.i.te vaults. It is 85 ft.

long by 32 ft. broad. There are seven windows on one side only. At the end of the library, approached by a flight of thirteen stairs, is a room of the same width and 21 ft. long, which may have been used as an inner library. An inscription over the door of entrance records that this library was built in 1516[361].

While discussing the arrangements of Italian libraries, I must not omit that at the Convent of S. Francis at a.s.sisi[362]. The catalogue, dated 1 January, 1381, shews that the library, even at that comparatively early date, was in two divisions: (1) for the use of the brethren; (2) for loans to extraneous persons. This catalogue, after a brief preface stating that it includes "all the books belonging to the library of the Holy Convent of S. Francis at a.s.sisi, whether they be chained, or whether they be not chained," begins as follows:

In the first place we make a list of the books which are chained to benches (_banchi_) in the Public Library as follows, and observe that all the leaves of all the books which are in this catalogue, whether they are in quires of 12, 10, 8, or any other number of leaves larger or smaller,--every one of these books contains the denomination of the quires, as appears in the first quire of each book on the lower margin: all the quires being marked at beginning and end in black and red with the figure here shewn, and the number of the quire within it.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Moreover, the letters of the alphabet that are placed on the top of the covers ought all to be fairly large and entirely black, as marked below [in this catalogue] at the end of each book[363].

This introduction is succeeded by the list of books. They are chained to nine benches on the west side of a room, and to the same number on the east side. The total is 170.

The second part of the catalogue has the following heading:

In the name of the Lord, Amen. Here begins the list of all the books which are in the Reserved Library (_libraria secreta_) of the Holy Convent of S. Francis at a.s.sisi, appointed to be lent to prelates, masters, readers, bachelors, and all other brethren in orders, according as the amount of knowledge or line of study of each demands them.

This part of the collection is contained in eleven presses (for which the unusual word _solarium_[364] is used) arranged along the east and west walls of a room, but whether the same as the last we are not informed. The number of ma.n.u.scripts is 530.

A considerable number of the ma.n.u.scripts here registered still exists.

They are well taken care of in the Town Hall, and a list of them has been privately printed. Several are in their original condition, bound in boards about a quarter of an inch thick, covered with white leather. The t.i.tle, written on a strip of parchment, is pasted on the top of the right-hand board. It usually begins with a capital letter in red or black, denoting the desk or press in which a given MS. would be found, thus:

F Postilla Magistri Nicolai de lyra super psalmos reponatur uersus orientem in banco vj^o.

In the next place I will tell at length the story of the establishment of the Vatican Library by Pope Sixtus IV., as it is both interesting in itself and useful for my present purpose[365].

The real founder of the Vatican Library, as we understand the term, was Nicholas V. (1447-1455), but he was unable to do more than collect books, for which no adequate room was provided till the accession of Sixtus IV.

in 1471. In December of that year, only four months after his election, his chamberlain commissioned five architects to quarry and convey to the palace a supply of building-stone "for use in a certain building there to be constructed for library-purposes[366]"; but the scheme for an independent building, as indicated by the terms here employed, was soon abandoned, and nothing was done for rather more than three years. In the beginning of 1475, however, a new impulse was given to the work by the appointment of Bartolommeo Platina as Librarian (28 February)[367]; and from that date until Platina's death in 1481 it went forward without let or hindrance. This distinguished man of letters seems to have enjoyed the full confidence of the Pope, to have been liberally supplied with funds, and to have had a free hand in the employment of craftsmen and artists to furnish and decorate his Library. It is pleasant to be able to record that he lived to see his work completed, and all the books under his charge catalogued. The enumeration of the volumes contained in the different stalls, closets, and coffers, with which the catalogue of 1481 concludes, is headed by a rubric, which records, with pathetic simplicity, the fact that it was drawn up "by Platina, librarian, and Demetrius of Lucca his pupil, keeper, on the 14th day of September, 1481, only eight days before his death[368]."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 98. Ground-plan of the rooms in the Vatican Palace fitted up for library-purposes by Sixtus IV.

E. Wilson, Cambridge]

It is evident that the Library had suffered considerably from the negligence of those in whose charge it had been. Many volumes were missing, and those that remained were in bad condition. Platina and his master set to work energetically to remedy these defects. The former engaged a binder, and bought materials for his use[369]; the latter issued a Bull (30 June) of exceptional severity[370]. After stating that "certain ecclesiastical and secular persons, having no fear of G.o.d before their eyes, have taken sundry volumes in theology and other faculties from the library, which volumes they still presume rashly and maliciously to hide and secretly to detain"; such persons are warned to return the books in question within forty days. If they disobey they are _ipso facto_ excommunicated. If they are clerics they shall be incapable of holding livings, and if laymen, of holding any office. Those who have knowledge of such persons are to inform against them. The effect produced by this doc.u.ment has not been recorded; nor are we told what the extent of the loss was. It could hardly have been very extensive, for a catalogue which Platina prepared, or perhaps only signed, on the day of his election, enumerates 2527 volumes, of which 770 were Greek and 1757 Latin[371]. The number of the latter had more than doubled in the twenty years that had elapsed since the death of Nicholas V., an augmentation due, in all probability, to the activity of Sixtus himself.