Introduction to Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library in Latin, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana; in Italian, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, is the library of the Holy See, located within the city-state of Vatican City, and is also the national library. It was officially founded in 1475, although it is much older; it is, in fact one of the oldest libraries in the world and has one of the most important collections of historical texts. It possesses 75,000 codices from all epochs, as well as 1.1 million printed books, which include some 8,500 incunabula.
The Vatican Library is a research library on history, law, philosophy, science, and theology. It is open to all who can document their qualifications and research needs. Photocopies of pages from books published between 1801 and 1990 for private study can be requested either in person or by mail.
Pope Nicholas V, who ruled during 1447–1455, seemed to have envisioned a new Rome, with giant public works, intended to attract pilgrims and scholars to the city and begin its transition. He wanted a “public library” for Rome-that is to say, a center for humanist scholarship-but died without this vision being realized. His successor, Pope Sixtus IV, who reigned between 1471 and 1484, finally brought this about by establishing what is now known as the Vatican Library.
In March 2014, the Vatican Library began an initial four-year project to digitize its collection of manuscripts, with plans to make them available online.
The Vatican Apostolic Archive was separated from the library at the beginning of the 17th century and contains an additional 150,000 items.
Historical periods
Scholars have traditionally divided the history of the library into five periods: Pre-Lateran, Lateran, Avignon, Pre-Vatican, and Vatican.
Pre-Lateran
The Pre-Lateran period, including the initial days of the library, dating from the earliest days of the Church. Only a few volumes are preserved, though some are very important.
At the Lateran
The Lateran era began when the library moved to the Lateran Palace. It extended up to the end of the 13th century, at the time of the death of Pope Boniface VIII in 1303. By then he had made one of the most famous collections of illuminated manuscripts in Europe. In that very year, however, the Lateran Palace was burnt and the collection plundered by Philip IV of France.
At Avignon
The Avignon period took place during the Avignon Papacy, when seven successive popes resided in Avignon, France. This era saw significant growth in the book collection and record-keeping by the popes in Avignon, spanning from the death of Boniface VIII until the 1370s, when the papacy returned to Rome.
Prior to establishment at the Vatican
The Pre-Vatican period lasted from about 1370 to 1447. During those times, the library was scattered and parts of it were located in Rome, Avignon, and other places. By the time of his death, Pope Eugenius IV had a collection of 340 books.
At the Vatican
In 1451, the bibliophile Pope Nicholas V wished to organize a public library at the Vatican, partly for the re-establishment of Rome as a center of scholarship. Nicholas combined around 350 Greek, Latin, and Hebrew codices inherited from his predecessors with his collection and extensive acquisitions, including manuscripts from the imperial Library of Constantinople.
He also expanded his collection by employing Italian and Byzantine scholars to translate Greek classics into Latin for his library. A knowledgeable pope, Nicholas encouraged the inclusion of pagan classics and played a key role in preserving many Greek works and writings, which he collected during his travels and acquired from others.
In 1455, the collection had grown to 1200 books, of which 400 were in Greek.
Nicholas V died in 1455, and in 1475, his successor Pope Sixtus IV established the Palatine Library. He filled it during his pontificate with purchases of texts in theology, philosophy, and artistic literature. The manuscripts housed in the collection are estimated as 3,500 in 1475 or 2,527 in 1481 when librarians Bartolomeo Platina and Pietro Demetrio Guazzelli composed a signed inventory. It was the largest collection of books in the Western world at the time.
Pope Julius II commissioned the expansion of the building, and around 1587, Pope Sixtus V enlisted the architect Domenico Fontana to design a new structure for the library, which is still in use today. Subsequently, the library came to be known as the Vatican Library.
The library’s collections were no longer available to scholars due to the Counter-Reformation after the Index of Banned Books was introduced. Scholars, particularly Protestant scholars, were not allowed access. In the 17th century, these restrictions were gradually lifted. In 1883, Pope Leo XIII officially reopened the library to scholars.
In 1756, the priest Antonio Piaggio, curator of ancient manuscripts at the Library, used a machine he invented to unroll the first Herculaneum papyri. It took him months to unroll this operation.
In 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte took Pope Pius VII into detention and seized and transported the library contents to Paris. In 1817, three years after Napoleon’s defeat and abdication, those items were returned to the Vatican.
Its first major revitalization took place between the two World Wars: Pope Pius XI, a scholar and former librarian, coordinated with librarians from all around the world to revitalize this library. Until then, although supported by the competence of many experts, this library remained lamentably disorganized, and its junior librarians inadequately trained.
Foreign scholars, especially Americans, pointed out the inadequacies of the library’s facilities for such a collection. Some American organizations, including the American Library Association and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, offered to help in implementing a modern cataloging system. Furthermore, Vatican librarians were invited to visit libraries throughout the United States to receive training in modern library practices.
They visited the Library of Congress, and the libraries in Princeton, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Champaign, Toronto, and Ann Arbor. When they got back to Rome, a reorganization plan was initiated with an aim of setting up a summary index by author for each manuscript and a catalog for the incunabula.
When done, the Vatican Library became one of the most modern in Europe. The initiative of this global cooperation focused upon the importance of international relations for librarians and resulted in establishing the International Federation of Library Associations in 1929, that is still ongoing.
The library contained about two million cataloged items in 1992.
Among several thefts from the Library 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. One of the stolen leaves contained an exquisite miniature of a farmer threshing grain. A fourth leaf from an unknown source was also found in his possession by U.S. Customs agents. Melnikas had been attempting to sell the pages to an art dealer, who alerted the library director, leading to the recovery of the stolen items.
Location and building
The library is situated within the Vatican Palace, with access through the Belvedere Courtyard. When Pope Sixtus V commissioned the expansion and new building of the Vatican Library between 1585 and 1590, he had a three-story wing built directly across Bramante’s Cortile del Belvedere, which bisected it and greatly changed Bramante’s original design. At the bottom of a grand staircase, a large statue of Hippolytus decorates the La Galea entrance hall.
The first semi-basement contains a papyrus room and a storage area for manuscripts. The restoration laboratory is located on the first floor, and the photographic archives are on the second floor.
The library has 42 kilometres (26 mi) of shelving.
The library closed for renovations on 17 July 2007 and reopened on 20 September 2010. The three-year, 9 million euro renovation involved a complete shutdown of the library to install climate-controlled rooms.
Architecture and art
In the Sala di Consultazione or main reference room of the Vatican Library, stands a statue of St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1910), sculpted by Cesare Aureli. Another version of this statue is located under the entrance portico of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum (c. 1930).
Library organization
Catalogue
The collection was earlier organised using notebooks to index the manuscripts. Due to the large number of more than a few thousand items, shelf lists were employed. The first modern cataloging system was undertaken under Father Franz Ehrle between 1927 and 1939, who began introducing the Library of Congress card catalogue system. Ehrle also established the first program on photographing important or rare works. The library catalogue was further updated by Rev. Leonard E. Boyle when it was computerized in the early 1990s.
Reading and lending
Historically, during the Renaissance era, most books in the Vatican Library were not shelved but stored in wooden benches, each equipped with attached tables. Each bench was dedicated to a specific topic, and the books were chained to these benches. If a reader removed a book, the chain remained attached.
Until the early 17th century, academics were allowed to borrow books. For particularly important works, the pope himself would issue a reminder slip. Privileges to use the library could be revoked for breaking house rules, such as climbing over the tables. One of the most famous cases involved Pico della Mirandola, who lost the right to use the library after publishing a theological work that was not approved by the Papal Curia. In the 1760s, a decree by Pope Clement XIII severely restricted access to the library’s holdings.
The Vatican Library can be accessed by 200 scholars at a time, and it sees 4,000 to 5,000 scholars a year, mostly academics doing post-graduate research.
Collections
While the Vatican Library has always included Bibles, canon law texts, and theological works, it has specialized from the beginning in secular books. Its collection of Greek and Latin classics played a central role in the revival of classical culture during the Renaissance. The oldest documents in the library date back to the first century.
The library was founded primarily as a manuscript library, a fact reflected in the comparatively high ratio of manuscripts to printed works in its collection. The printed books that have made their way into the collection are intended solely to facilitate the study of the much larger collection of manuscripts.
The collection also includes 330,000 Greek, Roman, and papal coins and medals. Each year, about 6,000 new books are acquired. Over the centuries, the library has been enriched by several bequests and acquisitions.
In 1623, in gratitude for the political maneuvers of Pope Gregory XV, which had helped him in his struggles with Protestant candidates for the Elector’s position, the hereditary Palatine Library of Heidelberg, containing about 3,500 manuscripts, was given to the Holy See by Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria.
He had recently acquired it as loot during the Thirty Years’ War. A small group of 39 of the Heidelberg manuscripts was sent to Paris in 1797 and later returned to Heidelberg at the Peace of Paris in 1815. Additionally, in 1816, Pope Pius VII gifted 852 manuscripts, including the Codex Manesse, to the University of Heidelberg. Aside from these exceptions, the majority of the Palatine Library remains in the Vatican Library to this day.
Queen Christina of Sweden’s important library, largely amassed by her generals as loot from Habsburg Prague and German cities during the Thirty Years’ War, was purchased after her death in 1689 by Pope Alexander VIII. This collection represented, for all practical purposes, the entire royal library of Sweden at the time. Had it remained in Stockholm, it would have been lost in the destruction of the royal palace by fire in 1697.
Among the most famous holdings of the library is the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, the oldest known nearly complete manuscript of the Bible. Additionally, the Secret History of Procopius was discovered in the library and published in 1623.
In 1959, the Vatican Film Library was established. This should not be confused with the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library, which was founded earlier in 1953 at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Manuscripts
Among the library’s notable manuscripts are:
Manuscripts relating to Christianity
The Vatican Library is home to several invaluable and historically significant works, including:
- Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209, one of the oldest extant Bibles in the Greek language.
- Barberini Gospels, a richly decorated manuscript of the Gospels.
- Gelasian Sacramentary, one of the oldest books on Christian liturgy.
- Joshua Roll, an ancient illuminated manuscript depicting the biblical story of Joshua.
- Lorsch Gospels, an illuminated gospel book written and illustrated between 778 and 820. Portions of it are spread across various museums, with the carved ivory rear cover and the Gospels of Luke and John housed in the Vatican Library.
- Menologion of Basil II, a lavishly illustrated manuscript of Byzantine origin.
- Vatican Croatian Prayer Book, a significant manuscript of early Croatian religious texts.
- Three fragments of the Old Saxon Genesis and one fragment of Heliand, which together comprise Palatinus Latinus 1447.
- Libri Carolini, a collection of texts related to the Carolingian Empire.
These works represent some of the most important manuscripts in the Vatican Library’s vast and diverse collection.
Classic Greek and Latin texts
The Vatican Library also houses several other key ancient and classical works, including:
- Vergilius Vaticanus, a manuscript of the works of the Roman poet Virgil.
- Vergilius Romanus, another important manuscript of Virgil’s works.
- Vergilius Augusteus, with four leaves held at the Vatican Library and three at the Berlin State Library.
- Codex Vaticanus Ottobonianus Latinus 1829, a significant 14th-century manuscript containing the poems of the Roman poet Catullus.
- Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868, a 9th-century facsimile of Terence’s comedies.
- Parts of Euclid’s Elements, most notably Book I, Proposition 47, which includes one of the oldest Greek texts on the Pythagorean Theorem.
These texts are invaluable examples of ancient and classical literature, contributing significantly to the preservation of historical knowledge.
Medieval Greek and Latin texts
The Vatican Library also holds the following notable manuscripts:
- Codex Vaticano Rossi 215, fragments of the Rossi Codex, a significant manuscript.
- Vaticanus Graecus 1001, the original manuscript of The Secret History by Procopius.
- De arte venandi cum avibus, a Latin treatise on falconry, preserved in the format of a two-column parchment codex consisting of 111 folios, written in the 1240s.
These works are important contributions to historical, literary, and scientific knowledge, with some offering unique insights into ancient texts and practices.
Others
The Vatican Library is home to several other important and unique manuscripts, including:
- Codex Borgia, an extensive Mesoamerican manuscript that depicts mythology and foundational rituals through hieroglyphic texts and iconography, created on animal skins.
- Codex Vat. Arabo 368, the sole manuscript of the Hadith Bayad wa Riyad, an Arabic love story.
- Codex Vaticanus 3738, also known as the Codex Ríos, an accordion-folded Italian translation of a Spanish colonial-era manuscript. It includes copies of the Aztec paintings from the original Codex Telleriano-Remensis and is believed to have been written by the Dominican friar Ríos in 1566.
- Borgiani Siriaci 175, a manuscript scroll of the Diwan Abatur, a Mandaean text.
These manuscripts offer fascinating insights into a range of cultural, literary, and religious traditions, highlighting the diversity of the Vatican Library’s collection.
Qurans
The Vatican Library contains over 100 Quran manuscripts from various collections, cataloged by the Italian Jewish linguist Giorgio Levi Della Vida. These include:
- Vaticani arabi 73
- Borgiani arabi 25
- Barberiniani orientali 11
- Rossiani 2
The largest manuscript in the library is Vat. Ar. 1484, which measures 540x420mm. The smallest manuscript, Vat. Ar. 924, is a circular text with a diameter of 45mm and is preserved in an octagonal case. These manuscripts represent the depth and diversity of the library’s Islamic collections.
Digitization projects
In 2012, plans were announced to digitize a million pages of material from the Vatican Library in collaboration with the Bodleian Library. On 20 March 2014, the Holy See revealed that an agreement had been reached with NTT Data Corporation to digitize approximately 3,000 of the library’s manuscripts within four years.
NTT is donating the necessary equipment and technicians, valued at 18 million Euros, with the possibility of digitizing an additional 79,000 items in the future. These high-definition images will be made available on the library’s website, with storage provided on a three-petabyte server from EMC. The first phase of the project is expected to take four years.
The Vatican Library’s digital library service, called DigiVatLib, offers free access to its digitized collections of manuscripts and incunabula. Special scanning equipment is used for books with gold and silver illuminations due to the materials used in the texts. Digital copies are served through the CIFS protocol, supported by network-attached storage hardware provided by Dell EMC.
