Vatican Library

The Vatican Library (Latin: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana) is the library of the Holy See, currently located in Vatican City. It is one of the oldest libraries and contains one of the most significant collections of historical texts.

Historical periods

Scholars have traditionally divided the history of the library into five periods.

Pre-Lateran. The initial days of the library, dating from the earliest days of the church, before it moved to the Lateran Palace; only a negligible number of volumes survive from this period.
Lateran. When books and manuscripts were kept at the Lateran Palace. Lasted until the end of the 13th century and the reign of Pope Boniface VIII.
Avignon. This period saw a great growth in book collection and record keeping by the popes who were in residence in southern France in Avignon between the death of Boniface and 1370s when the Papacy returned to Rome.
Pre-Vatican. From about 1370 to 1447 the library was scattered, with parts in Rome, Avignon and elsewhere.
Vatican. Starting around 1448 when the library moved to the Vatican and a continuous history begins to the present time.

Establishing the Vatican library

Pope Nicholas V established the library in the Vatican in 1448 by combining 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.

When its first librarian, Bartolomeo Platina, produced a listing in 1481, the library held over 3500 items, making it by far the largest in the Western world. Around 1587, Pope Sixtus V commissioned the architect Domenico Fontana to construct a new building for the library; it is still in use today. Books were displayed on benches to which they were chained.

Bequests and acquisitions

The library was enriched by several bequests and acquisitions over the centuries.

In 1623, the hereditary Palatine Library of Heidelberg containing about 3500 manuscripts was given to the Vatican by Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria in thanks for the adroit political maneuvers of Pope Gregory XV that had sustained him in his contests with Protestant candidates for the electoral seat. A token 39 of the Heidelberg manuscripts were sent to Paris in 1797 and were returned to Heidelberg at the Peace of Paris in 1815, and a gift from Pope Pius VII of 852 others was made in 1816. Aside from that, the Palatine Library remains in the Vatican Library to this day.

In 1657, the manuscripts of the Dukes of Urbino were acquired. In 1661 the Greek scholar Leo Allatius was made librarian. Christina of Sweden saw to it that her library, which was for all practical purposes the entire royal library of Sweden of the time, became part of the Vatican Library on her death in 1689.

Current holdings

Today, the library holds some 75,000 manuscripts and over 1.1 million printed books, which include some 8,500 incunabula. The Secret Vatican Archives were separated from the library at the beginning of the 17th century; they contain another 150,000 items.

Among the most famous holdings of the library is the Codex Vaticanus, the oldest known manuscript of the Bible. The Secret History of Procopius was discovered in the library and published in 1623.

A commonly repeated urban legend has it that the Vatican Library holds the largest collection of pornography in the world. This is false; the library owns very few pornographic materials, largely file copies of works on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. There are also a few mildly erotic works of art, but very little since the Renaissance. In some circles this urban legend has reached the proportions of a conspiracy theory, and includes claims that the Vatican has a pornography printing plant beneath the Vatican, run by the cardinals, which is responsible for supplying most of the world's pornography. This is likewise not supported or believed by the vast majority of Vatican scholars.

The Vatican Library is a research library for history, law, philosophy, science and theology, open to anyone who can document their qualifications and their research needs to view the collection. Photocopies for private study of pages from books published between 1801 and 1990 can be requested in person or by mail. A School of Library Science is associated with the Vatican Library.

Theft

In 1995 it was determined that Anthony J. Melnikas, a retired Ohio State University art history professor, had stolen a number of pages from rare books in the Vatican Library over a number of years. He was eventually prosecuted and the pages returned.^*

External links

Vatican Library home page, with online catalog search
Rome Reborn: The Vatican Library & Renaissance Culture, an online exhibition from the Library of Congress.
On the pornography urban legend, by snopes.com
Toward On-line, worldwide access to Vatican Library materials (1996). A collaborative effort (pioneered by Fr. Leonard Boyle OP Prefect of the Vatican Library) between the Vatican Library and IBM, the primary goal of which is to "provide access via the Internet to some of the Library's most valuable manuscripts, printed books, and other sources to a scholarly community around the world."
Vatican to digitize Apostolic Library of 1.6 million volumes for general perusal, PCWorld.com, October 29, 2002. A joint effort between the Vatican and Hewlett-Packard.