NOVO I SUVREMENO DOBA AEVUM NOVUM AC NOVISSIMUM

III. DIO

NOVO I SUVREMENO DOBAAEVUM NOVUM AC NOVISSIMUM

THE VATICAN LIBRARY – THE MEMORY OF MANKIND

H.E. FREDRIK VAHLQUIST UDK: 027.5 (456.31 Vatikan)Ambassador of the Kingdom of Sweden in Croatia Pregledni članakHR - Zagreb, Frankopanska 22 Primljeno: 9. I. 2011.

The Church of Rome has possessed archives and collections of books since the days of the ancient church. Since it regards itself as keeper of the memory of mankind, archives and libraries have always played a vital role for the Church. Nicolas V (1447-1455) is regarded as the founder of the public Vatican Library, but it was Sixtus IV who in 1475 issued the bull formally founding it. The Library of the Popes continued to grow steadily and between 1587 and 1589 a new library building was erected. Over the centuries the Vati-can Library has been enriched with many important, private libraries and col-lections, such as the Bibliotheca Palatina, the library of the Dukes of Urbino, Queen Christina of Sweden’s important collection of rare manuscripts in Latin and Greek, manuscripts and archival papers belonging to the Ottoboni family and the libraries of the noble Roman families of Borghese and Barberini. At the end of the 19th century and onwards, the Vatican Library opened up its doors to scholars and researchers and became known not only as a preserver of treas-ures, but also as a centre for the active study of them. Modernisation continued during the 20th century; computerised cataloguing was introduced in 1985 and since 2002 the Library has had its own website. A regular electronic newsletter has been published since 2009.

The Roman Catholic Church is the world’s oldest continuously operat-ing organisation, with a current membership of 1.2 billion. It regards itself as keeper of the memory of mankind. This being so, it is easy to appreci-ate the vital role played by its archives and libraries over the centuries and the signifi cant place they retain to this day. Ever since the days of the ancient church, the Church of Rome has possessed archives and collections of books. The documents in the archives were listed in records and kept by the Popes in a Scrinium Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae – the ‘book chest’ of the Holy Roman Church. The manuscripts related mainly to canon law and

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liturgy. Archaeological excavations have shown that Pope Agapitus (535–536) had a library on the Caelian Hill in Rome. There is also evidence that Leo III (795–816) had both an archive and a library. Furthermore, cata-logues of books survive from the pontifi cates of Innocent III (1198–1216) and Boniface VIII (1294–1303).

During the ‘Babylonian captivity’ of the popes in Avignon in southern France from 1309 to 1376, John XXII (1316–1334) and Clement VI (1342–1352) built up considerable collections of books, the remnants of which are now mainly held the Vatican Library but also by the Bibliothèque Na-tionale in Paris. However, the catalogues of these collections are kept in the Vatican Secret Archives, in which all archival materials concerning the history of the Roman Catholic Church have been kept since the beginning of the seventeenth century. It was Paul V (1605–1621) who in 1611–1614 ordered the archival records of the Church to be collected and, in the Papal Palace, established the Archivio Segreto Vaticano – the Vatican Secret Ar-chives – about which so many myths have fl ourished. The oldest evidence of a papal archive dates from the fourth century. However, as papyrus, a fragile material, was used for writing on for many centuries, few traces of this archive have survived. It was only in 1020 that the Papal Chancery be-gan to use parchment, a stronger material made of sheep, goat or calf skin. The name derives from an ancient Greek city in Asia Minor, Pergamon, where parchment was fi rst widely used. Naturally, much material has also been lost to the ravages of war, plunder and fi re. Major losses also occurred as the Papal Court moved from place to place, both before and after the Lateran Palace in Rome became a more or less permanent residence in the seventh century. The oldest surviving documents in the Vatican Archive are from the ninth or tenth century.

Since 1614, the library and the archive have been housed in the same building, leading separate lives but both under the ultimate supervision of the same Cardinal, who bears the title of Archivist and Librarian Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. In June 2007, the Prefect of the Vatican Li-brary, Bishop Raffaele Farina, succeeded Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran in this position. In conjunction with this, Benedict XVI made Bishop Farina an Archbishop. Just a few months later, in November 2007, Archbishop Farina was made a Cardinal, a rank held by all 45 of his predecessors. Don Cesare Pasini is since 2007 the new Prefect of the Vatican Library. He was previously Vice-Prefect of the famous Ambrosian Library in Milan.

Nicholas V (1447–1455) is regarded as the founder of the public Vati-can Library. He expressed its purpose in the words: Pro communi doctorum virorum commodo – ‘For the common convenience of learned men’. Prior

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to this, the book collections had been regarded as the private library of the Popes. Nicholas V was one of the early humanists and embodied in his person the learned art lover and bibliophile. The library started with 350 Latin manuscripts, mainly for the needs of the Curia. Agents were sent out in search of manuscripts in Europe and Western Asia. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the dispersal of its artistic treasures, the book-loving Pope succeeded in acquiring hundreds of priceless manuscripts that came to form the core of the Vatican Library, which soon became the fore-most in Europe. In addition, Nicholas V donated his private collection to the Vatican Library. At his death, the number of manuscripts is estimated to have been around 1 300, a third of them in Greek. Considering that the collections now comprise over 80 000 manuscripts this may not sound a very impressive fi gure. However, it was certainly a large collection for the time. Even though Nicholas V died before the library was completed, it is his spirit and the environment he created that still characterise the Vatican Library today.

It was in the time of Nicholas V that Johann Gutenberg (c. 1400–1468) from Mainz invented an instrument that made it possible to cast movable metal type. This revolutionary invention soon made it possible to print sev-eral hundred copies of a book in considerably shorter time than a scribe had previously needed to copy a single manuscript. When Nicholas V planned his library, it was naturally impossible for him to imagine that within a few decades the mechanical reproduction of books would lead to a veritable fl ood of printed material which in turn would demand new library space on a previously completely unknown scale.

It was Sixtus IV (1471–1484) who, with energy and determination, car-ried Nicholas V’s plans to fruition. He was known as a grand patron and protector of the fi ne arts; the Sistine Chapel is named after him. On 15 June 1475 Sixtus IV issued the bull formally founding the Vatican Library, or Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana: Ad decorem militantis Ecclesiae et fi dei augmentum – for the decorum of the militant Church and for the dissemina-tion of the faith. In a historical perspective, this library – and therefore the present Papal Library – is regarded as the fourth. Sixtus IV had the library enlarged and gave it its own budget. In addition, he made the humanist Bartolomeo Platina librarian, with a staff of three assistants and a book-binder. The artist Melozzo da Forli (1438–1494) immortalised this event in a magnifi cent fresco, painted in 1477 in the library of Pope Sixtus IV in the Vatican. The library overlooked the Belvedere courtyard and consisted of four rooms, each adorned with beautiful frescos, and devoted separately to Greek manuscripts, Latin manuscripts, especially precious manuscripts

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and, in the fourth room, the Papal Archive and book catalogues. The staff worked in a fi fth, outer room. Manuscripts could be borrowed. The register of loans from 1475 to 1547 still survives. It appears from this and other sources that the number of manuscripts increased from just over 2 500 to 3 500 between 1475 and 1481.

The library’s premises were enlarged under Julius II (1503–1513). His successor, Leo X (1513–1521), who excommunicated Martin Luther in his last year as Pope, was a man who cared about books. His interest is illus-trated by a painting by Raphael in the Uffi zi in Florence, which shows the Pope reading a Bible with great interest and studying the miniatures with a magnifying glass. He patronised the great artists of the age, including Michelangelo and Raphael, who were both engaged in the decoration of St Peter’s Basilica.

1527 was an annus horribilis for Rome and its inhabitants. This was the year of the ‘Sacco di Roma’, when the city was invaded and sacked by the Spanish and German troops of Emperor Charles V, whose mercenaries plundered the Vatican collections.

During the pontifi cate of Paul III (1534–1549), the offi ce of Cardinal Librarian, or ‘Librarian of the Holy Roman Church’, to give him his offi -cial title, was established. This was in the year 1548 and the offi ce was fi rst held by Cardinal Marcello Cervini, who later became Pope Marcellus II (1555). He was the last Pope to retain his baptismal name. Marcellus held the offi ce of Vicar of Christ for just three weeks before dying.

Under Pius V (1566–1572), a very considerable number of papal docu-ments were successfully brought to Rome, after having been kept in Avi-gnon ever since the ‘Babylonian captivity’ of the Popes there for most of the fourteenth century. These included 158 papal Registri and the volumes of documents relating to the Schism.

To deal with the increasingly rapidly growing holdings, Gregory XIII (1572–1585) decided to fi nd new premises for the library. However, it was his successor Sixtus V (1585–1590) who put these far-sighted plans into practice during fi ve short but eventful years. His roots were Croatian, and his family originated from the Eastern Adriatic Coast. His father was born in a village near to Bijela in the Bay of Kotor. In order to escape a Turkish invasion the father moved to Italy and settled in Ancona as a gardener. His son Felice Peretti, the future Pope, was born at Grottammare in the Papal States in December 1520.

As a Pope he had grand plans to have Rome “re-built” and immense sums were spent upon public works, for example bringing water to the waterless hills in the Acqua Felice, feeding no less than twenty-seven new


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fountains. Also during this few but hectic years the monumental dome of St. Peter´s was completed. Sixtus V set no limits to his grandiose plans, carried them through at high speed and indeed achieved impressive results during his short pontifi cate.

In 1587–89, this energetic and purposeful Franciscan of Croatian stock had a new library building erected by architect Domenico Fontana on the opposite side of the Belvedere courtyard. This attractive court had been formed at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Bramante built the long arcades designed to connect the medieval Papal Palace to the south with the Villa Belvedere in the northern part of the Vatican gardens. Now, regrettably, the court was cut off forever.

In 1587 the Pope also established a printing works, Tipografi a Vaticana. The purpose was to print an improved edition of Jerome´s Vulgate. Sixtus V’s Bible was issued from the press in 1590, with a revised version appear-ing just two years later. It is said to be “as splendid a translation of the Bible into Latin as the King James version is into English”.

Until the seventeenth century, the Vatican Library acquired relatively small collections of manuscripts and books through donations, gifts and purchases. In the course of this century, however, the Pope received three very large European libraries as ‘donations’: the Palatine library of Heidel-berg (1623), the library of the Dukes of Urbino (1657) and the library of Queen Christina of Sweden (1690).

Bibliotheca Palatina, which had belonged to the Counts Palatine in Heidelberg, is known in Germany as “die Mutter aller Bibliotheken” (‘the mother of all libraries’). In the course of the hard contests fought out in these parts between Catholics and Protestants during the Thirty Years War, the ancient university town fell into the hands of the Catholic army in 1622. The Catholic army was led by Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria, who donated the famous library to Gregory XV (1621–1623). However, the Pope, who had so coveted this booty, died before it reached the eternal city. The collection was transported by a long caravan of mules across the Alps and down to Rome, where it arrived in June 1623. His successor on the Throne of St Peter, Urban VIII (1623–1644), had two rooms leading to the Sistine Hall furnished to accommodate the great Palatine library. Being a German library, it contains a large collection of books written by prominent fi gures belonging to the Reformation. It is an irony of fate that the Vatican Library, of all libraries, contains such a rich collection of books written by the Reformers.

Another important collection absorbed into the Vatican Library at this time was the famous library of the Dukes of Urbino, with its fi ne manu-

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scripts. In the absence of an heir and as a result of internal confl icts and international power play, this important Duchy passed to the States of the Church, that is to say, the Pope. The great interest of the then Pope, Alex-ander VII (1655–1667), was art and science. It was he who commissioned the sculptor Bernini to enclose St Peter’s Square with curving colonnades composed of four rows of columns.

Queen Christina of Sweden’s (1626–1689) famous collection of old and rare manuscripts – Fondo Reginense – occupies a special place among the vast holdings of the Vatican Library. Christina is remembered as one of the most important political fi gures of her time. She is also noted as one of the most signifi cant patrons of art and literary culture of her day. But this remarkable woman is above all remembered for her abdication from the Swedish throne in 1654 and her subsequent conversion to Catholicism. This critical decision led her to leave Sweden and to spend the major part of her adult life in Rome, closely connected to the court of the Roman pontiffs. She would later be the fi rst foreign monarch to rest alongside the Popes in the crypt of St. Peter’s.

Christina arrived in Rome in December 1655, bringing with her an im-pressive and extremely valuable collection of art, sculptures, manuscripts, books, coins and medals. When she died on 19 April 1689, her good friend of many years, Cardinal Decio Azzolino, was left her sole heir. However, he was already marked by illness and died just seven weeks later. A nephew of his, Marquis Pompeo Azzolino, now inherited the Queen’s worldly goods but immediately disposed of most of the inheritance, apparently mainly so as to be able to pay the legacies the Queen had made in her will and the large debts she had left.

The library was acquired by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni who shortly af-terwards became Pope, taking the name Alexander VIII (1689–1691). In a truly magnanimous gesture, the Pope donated the bulk of Queen Christina’s fi ne collection of manuscripts to the Vatican Library. The collection con-sisted of over 2 300 manuscripts, mainly in Latin and Greek. The core of this Fondo Reginense was made up of the many manuscripts brought back to Sweden as booty in the fi nal phase of the Thirty Years War in 1647–48. The Queen had summoned the philologist Nicolaus Heinsius to her court, and sent him and librarian Isaac Vossius abroad in search of manuscripts. In addition, in 1648–50 the Queen acquired whole collections of manuscripts, including those of the prominent international lawyer Hugo Grotius, Isaac Vossius’s father Gerard, and in particular the collection of unusually valu-able manuscripts assembled by Parisian collector, Paul Petau and his son Alexander. Somewhat later she also bought the collection of French physi-


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cians Pierre and Jean Bourdelot, which primarily contained medical and philosophical manuscripts but also quite a number of Italian manuscripts acquired by Jean Bourdelot during his travels in Italy. Pierre Bourdelot was the Queen’s physician and close friend.

Only a few manuscripts in the Fondo Reginense are of Swedish ori-gin. These include a volume concerning the abdication of the Queen at the Riksdag in Uppsala in June 1654. There is also an Uppsala manuscript on the life and miracles of St Erik, from the Royal Library at Tre Kronor Cas-tle in Stockholm.

Since many years the Swedish Institute in Rome maintain close ties with the Vatican Library, which some 15 years ago developed into a creative col-laboration on the cataloguing of Queen Christina´s Latin manuscripts, the Codices Reginenses.

Upon the initiative of the Embassy of Sweden to the Holy See the Mar-cus and Amalia Wallenberg´s Memorial Fund in May 2008 donated a sum of SEK 4.6 million for the restoration and conservation of Queen Christina’s manuscripts. In addition King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden has personally granted funds from King Gustaf VI Adolf’s Fund for Swedish Culture to sup-port this extensive and time-consuming project, which will preserve a com-mon cultural heritage of signifi cance for humanity for future generations.

The Vatican Library and the Apostolic Palace

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The three major collections described above have to a great extent been kept intact. This is quite simply in keeping with a basic but important rule in library science. Where the magnifi cent Palatine library is concerned, moreover, it was the express wish of the donor that this should be done.

In the course of the following century too – the eighteenth century – signifi cant collections of manuscripts and books were added. Thus, Clem-ent XI (1700–1721) enriched the Vatican Library above all with oriental manuscripts and he is regarded today as the man who laid the foundation of the Library’s great holdings in this specifi c area. Under Benedict XIV (1740–1758), two more major collections were incorporated into the Li-brary, the collection of Marquess Alessandro Gregorio Capponi in 1746 and two years later the collection of Pope Alexander VIII (1689–1691). The latter collection bears the Pope’s family name, Ottoboni.

At the end of this century, moreover, Pius VI (1775–1799) and his right-hand man Cardinal Giovanni Archinto created the major collection of 18 000 engravings by masters from the fi fteenth to the eighteenth century. It was dur-ing this period that work began in all earnest on cataloguing the manuscripts in a more systematic and professional way. However, this project was never completed because of a fi re in 1768, which destroyed the draft of the fourth volume and the copies of the fi rst three parts. Two additional Cabinets were created in the eighteenth century that have nothing to do with books, namely the collection of coins and medals or Numismatic Cabinet (Gabinetto Nu-mismatico) in 1738 and the Museum of Sacred Art (Museo Sacro) in 1755. In 1767 the Museum of Secular Art (Museo Profano) came into being. The latter two museums now belong to the Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani).

The Age of Enlightenment led to an interest in other ancient and mod-ern cultures. In the Vatican Library, particular attention was devoted to manuscripts and books from the Arab world, the Far East and America. The much later acquisition of Stefano Borgia’s collection in 1902 was par-ticularly signifi cant in this area.

French troops plundered Rome and the Vatican in 1797 and 1809, taking valuable paintings and sculptures back to Paris along with large quantities of books and manuscripts. Most of these were returned after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Where printed books were concerned, the collection ac-tually grew during the French occupation, as the French made the Vatican Library a national library. It thus became the repository of all the collec-tions belonging to the Italian monasteries closed by the French.

In 1824 Pope Leo XII purchased en bloc the library of Count Leopoldo Cicognara and added it to the Vatican Library. This fi ne collection of 5 000 books on art and antiquity is the fi rst of its kind.


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In 1891 the great collection of manuscripts that had belonged to the fa-mous noble Roman Borghese family was added. A collection whose treas-ures include some manuscripts from the old papal collection of Avignon, as well as a number of chalcographic engravings. It was Camillo Borghese (1552–1621) who laid the foundation for the family’s wealth. He became Pope in 1605, taking the name Paul V. During his pontifi cate, the Basilica of St Peter was completed, the Vatican Library was extended and enlarged and works were undertaken to beautify the city of Rome. It was this Pope, moreover, who created the great art collections that were later purchased by the Italian State and are now housed in the Villa Borghese in Rome.

In the fi rst quarter of the twentieth century, the Library grew by the incorporation of three very signifi cant collections. The fi rst was that of the Barberini family in 1902. It consists of more than 11,000 Latin, Greek and Oriental manuscripts as well as over 36,000 printed books, including 320 incunabula. A cornerstone of the book collection is Johann Gutenberg’s major work, the 42-line Bible in Latin printed on parchment at Mainz in ca. 1454. Although it is one of the fi rst books ever printed it has rightly been acclaimed for it´s high aesthetic and technical quality. This fam-ily library was built up in the seventeenth century, when the Barberinis were one of Rome’s leading families. The baroque library itself, includ-ing bookshelves and all, was physically moved to the Vatican, where it has been restored and recently reassembled to show what a seventeenth century library could look like.

In 1921 the Vatican Library received the rich collection of rare books built up over many years in the nineteenth century by the bibliophile Gian Francesco De Rossi. With a view to improving relations with the Vatican, the Italian Government in 1923 donated the splendid Chigi library to the Pope. This impressive collection had for a long time been kept in the Chigi Palace, which had now passed into government use. The donation consisted of no less than 3 000 manuscripts, 300 incunabula and 30 000 other printed books. Other private collectors in Italy also donated valuable collections to the Vatican Library during the last century. One example is the splendid li-brary of Tammaro De Marinis, containing manuscripts and books in Italian bindings from the fi fteenth and sixteenth centuries – Fondo De Marinis. To give another example, Enrico Cerulli donated important collections of Per-sian and Ethiopian manuscripts, which are now known as Cerulli persiani and Cerulli etiopici respectively.

The pontifi cate of Leo XIII (1878–1903) was an important turning point in the history of the Vatican Library. During this quarter of a century work began on modernising the Vatican Library and opening it up to independent

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researchers. It was also this Pope who decided, in 1880, to open the doors of the Vatican Secret Archives to researchers. The Church thus came to serve both culture and research. In 1884 a school for palaeography, diplo-matics (document studies) and archival science was founded.

The Prefect of the Vatican Library during these eventful years 1895–1914 was a German Jesuit named Franz Ehrle. He realised that the enor-mous collections of printed material and manuscripts that had accumulat-ed by this time required better organisation. Ehrle himself had travelled widely and visited many libraries in order to form an opinion on how to manage, look after and catalogue large collections. It was he who promoted the idea of a scientifi c inventory of the Vatican’s manuscripts, which is still used to this day. Ehrle was in many ways a pioneer. As early as 1890 he established a special laboratory for conservation and restoration of books, the fi rst of its kind in the world. He was also one of the prime movers be-hind an international conference on the restoration of books, manuscripts and engravings. It was organized at the Abbey of St. Gall in 1898, and is now seen as the beginning of the modern era of book restoration. Ehrle also created a photographic laboratory in 1907 for preserving manuscripts through reproduction. It was extremely innovative for its time, featuring, among other things, an experimental “scientifi c laboratory” dedicated to ultraviolet, infra-red and X-ray photography. He also opened a new reading room for printed books, the Sala Leonina, which, though lacking the beau-tiful frescoes of the old reading room, is a true reference library with over 75 000 biographies, bibliographies, reference works, etc. From the time of Prefect Ehrle and onwards, the Vatican Library became known not only as a preserver of treasures, but also as a centre for the active study of them.

Monsignor Ratti is the only one of the Vatican Library’s many Pre-fects who has advanced all the way to the Throne of St Peter. In 1888 he became Junior Librarian and in 1907 Prefect of the celebrated Ambrosian Library in Milan. Seven years later he was appointed to the equivalent post at the Vatican Library. Following a three-year interlude as papal nuncio in Warsaw, he was named Archbishop of Milan in 1921 and made a Cardinal at the same time. But the very next year, Cardinal Ratti was elected head of the Catholic Church, adopting the name Pius XI (1922–1939). When, after the Conclave, he re-entered the library where he had spent so much of his life surrounded by manuscripts and books, he said: “We have returned to our old love.”

The modernisation of the Vatican Library continued under this book-loving Pope. The future Vice Prefect and Cardinal Eugène Tisserant (1884–1972), was sent on a study visit to the United States. As a result,


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American library experts were called in to supervise technical alterations. These were largely fi nanced by the Carnegie Foundation. Now the Vati-can Library obtained modern steel stacks, noiseless book lifts and multi-ple card catalogues. The fi nishing touch was the establishment in 1934 of a special school for printed books and library management – the Vatican School of Library Science (Scuola Vaticana di Biblioteconomia). Just as the expansion of the Turks in the 1450s had led to the dispersal of many Byzantine manuscript collections, the turmoil caused by the First World War in the east resulted in many fi ne libraries appearing on the antiquarian market. Pius XI sent two Prelates east on a purchasing expedition. One of them was Monseigneur Tisserant, who has already been mentioned, and the other a specialist in Slavic literature, Don Cirillo Korolevski. Together they roamed through Trieste, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sofi a and Istanbul. There they parted ways, with the French priest continuing to Syria, Palestine and Egypt while Don Cirillo enjoyed a productive expedition among Greek, Yugoslav, Hungarian, Romanian, Polish, Jewish and Armenian antiquarian book dealers. In Bessarabia, Don Cirillo is said to have fi lled a whole cart-load with old Russian folios in a single day. All in all, he sent eighty crates of books back to Rome in the course of this journey. Monseigneur Tisserant was no less successful, bringing home about a hundred unique manuscripts in various Levantine and Slavic languages.

In 1933 the Vatican Library acquired the important collection of the English archaeologist Thomas Ashby, who had assembled more than 1,000 drawings and 7,000 prints.

During the Second World War, the Library remained closed for about one academic year in 1943-44. But it also became a refuge for other book collections, religious or otherwise, which were brought there to avoid de-struction. These included those of the Abbey of Monte Cassino and several archival collections of noble Roman families. In 1944, the library of the Seminary of Frascati entered the Vatican Library, with the collection of Cardinal Stuart, Duke of York.

In later years, many other collections were acquired, including that of the Piedmontese collector Federico Patetta, the Boncompagni Ludovisi family, the Persian and Ethiopian manuscripts and books of Enrico Cerulli and the personal library and correspondence of Don Giuseppe De Luca.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century a project began to compile a catalogue of all the printed books in the Vatican Library. The US Library of Congress served as a model and the staff who were directly involved in the project were sent to Washington DC to study the new cataloguing system. On their return to Rome, they were accompanied by a number of

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American colleagues, who assisted them in the vast task of compiling the catalogue. A new card catalogue covering all the Library’s printed books was begun in 1929. Computerized cataloguing was introduced in 1985, during the prefecture of the Dominican Leonard E. Boyle. Between 1994 and 1996, the main entries in the entire card catalogue were converted into electronic format.

Since 1985, the catalogue of printed books has been accessible in elec-tronic form. The electronic catalogue also covers more than 10 000 en-gravings and woodcuts. Since 2002, the Holy See has had its own web-site – www.vatican.va. Up-to-date information about the Vatican Library is available via a link from this page and also by www.vaticanlibrary.va. Since 2009 the Vatican Library and its Prefect Don Pasini is also regularly publishing an electronic Newsletter.

One of the oldest and greatest treasures in the Vatican Library is an al-most complete Bible from the fourth century, the oldest existing Greek Bi-ble anywhere in the world. This Codex Vaticanus (Codex B, Vat.gr.1209) is written on parchment, in all probability in Egypt. Quite apart from its age, it is one of the most beautiful examples of Biblical Uncial script, a rounded script using capital letters that was mainly employed from the fourth to the sixth centuries. When it found its way into the library of the Popes is unclear, but it was probably in the time of Nicholas V. At any event, it is included in the list of holdings compiled in 1481. Like other extremely rare manuscripts, it is kept in loose leaf form in a special folder or under glass.

As recently as November 2006, a generous gift from an American do-nor, Frank Hanna, enabled the Vatican Library to acquire a papyrus con-taining the world’s oldest manuscript with parts of two different Gospels, namely, St Luke’s and St John’s. It was written around 200 AD.

Anyone acquainted with the historical bonds between Sweden and Italy knows the importance of Saint Birgitta (1303–1373) and the strong link between her and the See of Saint Peter. This remarkable women and mother of eight children arrived in Rome in 1350 and lived her last 19 years in what is now Casa di Santa Brigida at Piazza Farnese. Birgitta be-came famous for her heavenly revelations, Revelationes celestes. The fi rst complete Latin edition of these revelations was printed at Lübeck in 1492 by Bartholomaeus Ghotan. Birgitta founded the “Order of the Most Holy Saviour”, which was approved by Pope Urban V in 1370. It is now active in four continents and has more than 60 convents. Mother Tekla Famigli-etti is its charismatic and dynamic Abbess General since 1978. In 1391 Birgitta Birgersdotter was canonized and in 1999 John Paul II proclaimed her Patron Saint of Europe.


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On the occasion of the sixth centenary of the canonization of Saint Bir-gitta of Sweden the Vatican Library in 1991 enriched the events in her hon-our with an exhibition “Rosa rorans bonifatem”. On display in Vestibolo del Salone Sistino were i.a. copies of her Revelationes in manuscript and in early printed copies. Among other things also a unique and richly annotated missal from the hospital of Saint Birgitta in Rome.

Benedict XVI and Fredrik Vahlquist in June 2008 with a facsimile (2008) of the fi rst printed Swedish book of prayer Horae de Domina (Vadstena Abbey, 1495).

The Vatican Library’s manuscript collection has retained its status as the largest in the world. It now numbers 80 000 manuscripts. In addition, there are 100 000 other archival items of various kinds. The Library owns 1.6 million printed books, 8 400 incunabula (books printed before 1501), including 65 printed on parchment, over 150 000 engravings, woodcuts and drawings, 150 000 photographs and 300 000 coins and medals. The Medagliere may after its most recent acquisitions be considered one of the world’s richest and most precious collections of modern medals. The incunabula in the Library of the Pope constitute one of the most important such collections in the world. With its ca 8,400 books printed before 1501 the Vatican Library possesses the fourth largest in the world after the Ba-varian State Library in Munich (19,900), the British Library in London (12,500) and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris (12,000). The

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incunabula of the Vatican Library represent essential resources for inter-national scholarship not only in the fi eld of the history of the book, but in the fi eld of cultural history in general. Therefore, time was long overdue to compile a catalogue of Vatican incunabula.

A generous donation offered by the Most Reverend Dean of the Ca-thedral of Stockholm, Åke Bonnier, enabled the Vatican Library to fi nally initiate the Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae Incunabulorum Catalogues (BAVIAC), the Vatican incunabula catalogue in September 2009. This im-portant project will be realized in two phases. The fi rst has been limited to a catalogue with essential bibliographical data. It was completed in September 2010, one year earlier than originally planned and just in time for the reopening of the Vatican Library. It was welcomed by the inter-national scholarly community as an important achievement. For the fi rst time the Vatican incunabula are now visible in the On Line Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) of the Library of the Pope and hence also accessible to scholars all over the world for study and research. In the beginning of 2011 the Vatican Library was able to enter into the second phase of the incunabula project. After it has been fi nished BAVIAC will not only offer additional bibliographical information, but also detailed information re-garding specifi c features of the individual copies preserved in the Vatican collections. With his generous donation Dean Bonnier has, according to the Head of the Printed Books Department (Dipartimento degli Stampati), Dr. Adalbert Roth, “not only rendered a great service to the international scholarly community, but also given an outstanding example of lived ecu-menism, which has embellished the Vatican incunabula project with an unexpected spiritual dimension.”

Researchers and scholars from all over the world make their way to the Vatican Library each year to study the rare manuscripts and books. The beautiful reading room in the Manuscript Department – Sala Manoscritti – has space for 35 people while the corresponding room in the Printed Books Department – Sala Leonina – has space for 200 readers. Despite its size and wide-ranging activities, the Vatican Library has only around 100 employees. The size, age, areas of specialisation and quality together make the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana not just one of the world’s oldest libraries but also one of the very fi nest from both the researcher’s and the book historian’s point of view.

After having been closed for three years for extensive repairs and al-terations, the Vatican Library reopened its doors to scholars on 20 Sep-tember 2010 and was offi cially reopened on 9 November 2010. To mark the occasion, at the same time a major exhibition was opened on the vital


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importance of letters and words for the progress of mankind: “Knowing the Vatican Library. A History Open to the Future”. This exhibition presented the fascinating history of the Vatican Library and its rich and impressive collections, using the latest audiovisual technology. In connection with this event a beautiful, knowledgeable and profusely illustrated catalogue was published with Vice-Prefect Dr. Ambrogio M. Piazzoni and Dr Barbara Jat-ta, Curator of the Prints Cabinet (Gabinetto delle Stampe), as its editors. A three-day international conference on the library as a place of research and as an institution at the service of scholarship was also held. It was attended by three hundred participants.

On the occasion of the offi cial reopening of the Vatican Library Ben-edict XVI sent a message to Cardinal Raffaele Farina in which he empha-sised the vital importance of the Library to the Church and its leadership: “The Apostolic Library,” writes the Pope, “is an integral part of the means required to carry out the Petrine Ministry.” It is thus “rooted in the exigen-cies of the Church’s governance.” In fact, “far from being merely the result of the daily accumulation of a refi ned bibliophilia and the random collec-tion of works, the Vatican Library is a valuable means – which the Bishop of Rome cannot and does not intend to give up – which enables him, when considering problems in a perspective of long duration, to perceive the dis-tant roots of situations and their evolution in time.”

Benedict XVI being himself a man of learning, an author, a promi-nent scholar and a booklover paid a special visit to the Vatican Library on 18 December 2010. Cardinal Farina and Prefect Don Pasini accompanied the Holy Father through the newly refurbished library. The Pope showed a great interest in the work that had been accomplished over the previous three years. But he was also very interested in seeing some of the treasures from the Library´s collections, that were on display on this special day, including some rare manuscripts from Queen Christina´s collection and the magnifi cent Barberini copy of Johann Gutenberg´s famous 42-line Bible in Latin printed on parchment in about 1454.

As if planned by Divine Providence a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds and shone with beauty, when the Holy Father at the end of his visit to the Vatican Library gave us his fi nal blessing. Cardinal Farina said afterwards: “This is a dream which I have been nurturing for a long time, a dream that now came true in the best possible way, as a Christmas gift for each one of us.” All of us who had the great privilege of being present on this memorable occasion can only agree.

After years of planning and preparations and three years of extensive and indeed expensive refurbishments of the old library building, it is now

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continuing its important task of giving service to researchers and scholars from all over the world using modern and advanced electronic techniques and always remembering its important humanistic mission as the memory of mankind. A modern library open to the future!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BESKOW, PER – LANDEN, ANNETTE (ed.), Birgitta av Vadstena – Pil-grim och profet 1303-1373. En jubileumsbok 2003. Värnamo 2003.

BERGQUIST, LARS, Saint Birgitta. Lund 2000.Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana. Città del Vaticano 2010.Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Libri e luoghi all’inizio del terzo millennio –

Vatican Library. Books and Places of the Third Millennium. Città del Vaticanao 2011.BIGNAMI ODIER, JEANNE, La Bibliothèque Vaticane de Sixte IV à Pie XI

– Recherches sur l’histoire des collections de manuscrits, Studi e Testi. Città del Vaticano 1973.

Fifth Centenary of the Vatican Library – Catalogue of the Exhibition. Rome 1975.FRITZ, BIRGITTA, Suecia i Vatikanarkivet, Arkiv hemma och ute, Årsbok för

Riksarkivet och Landsarkiven. Västervik 1995. GUALA, GENNARO – PIAZZONI, AMBROGIO M. – RITA, ANDREINA

(ed.), Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana - Libri e luoghi all’inizio det terzo millennio; Vatican Library - Books and Places at the Beginning of the Third Millennium. Città del Vaticano 2011.

Guide des Musées et de la Cité du Vatican. Città del Vaticano 2005.JATTA, BARBARA, The Vatican Library: An Historical Library Today. Lec-

ture at the Royal Library in Stockholm, 7 May 2007.JATTA, BARBARA – PIAZZONI, AMBROGIO M. (ed). Conoscere la Bib-

lioteca Vaticana – “Una storia aperta al futuro”. Città del Vaticano 2010.MANFREDI, ANTONIO (ed.), Le origini della Biblioteca Vaticana tra

Umanesimo e Rinascimento (1447-1534). Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. Città del Vaticano 2010.

MUTNJAKOVIĆ, ANDRIJA, Arhitektonika pape Siksta V – The Architectonics of Pope Sixtus V. Zagreb 2010.

NATALINI, TERZO, The Vatican Secret Archives. Città del Vaticano 2000.NILSSON NYLANDER, EVA (ed.), Rosa rorans bonitatem – Exhibition ce-

lebrating the sixth centenary of the canonization of Saint Birgitta of Sweden. Città del Vaticano 1991.

NILSSON NYLANDER, EVA – VIAN, PAOLO, I manoscritti latini della regina Christina alla Biblioteca Vaticana: storia, stato e ricerche sul fondo, in Christina di Svezia e Roma. Atti del Simposio tennto all´Istituto Svedese di Studio Classici a Roma, 5-6 ottobre 1995. Börje Magnusson (ed). Stockholm 1999.


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RODÉN, MARIE-LOUISE, Queen Christina. Lund 1999.RODÉN, MARIE-LOUISE (ed.), AB AQUILONE – Nordic Studies in Honour

and Memory of Leonard E. Boyle, O.P. Kristianstad 2000.STENIUS, GÖRAN, Vatikanen. Helsingfors 1947.VAHLQUIST, FREDRIK, När Birgittas hus i Rom blev bokförlag och try-

ckeri. Ur jubileumsboken Birgitta av Vadstena – Pilgrim och profet 1303-1373. Värnamo 2003.

VAHLQUIST, FREDRIK, Vatikanens berömda bibliotek – en kort historik. Ur Sällskapet Bokvännernas i Finland jubileumsbok. Helsingfors 2008.

VAHLQUIST, FREDRIK, Sweden´s oldest printed prayer book – a unique in-cunabulum from Vadstena Abbey´s printing press, From Horae de Domina – Vår Frus tider, Skara stiftshistoriska sällskap, Johnny Hagberg (ed.). Värnamo 2008.

SAŽETAK - SUMMARIUM

VATIKANSKA BIBLIOTEKA – PAMĆENJE ČOVJEČANSTVA

Rimska je Crkva posjedovala od najranijih vremena arhive i zbirke knjiga, koji su – kako je Crkva smatrala da je čuvarica pamćenja čovječanstva – uvijek igrali vitalnu ulogu za Crkvu. Nikola V. (1447.-1455.) smatra se utemeljiteljem javne Vatikanske biblioteke, ali je Siksto IV. bio taj koji ju je bulom 1475. formal-no utemeljio. Papinska biblioteka je narasla i između 1587. i 1589. podignuta je za nju nova zgrada. Biblioteka je bila obogaćivana važnim privatnim knjižnicama, poput Bibliotheca Palatina, knjižnicom vojvoda iz Urbina, važnom zbirkom rijetkih latinskih i grčkih manuskripata švedske kraljice Kristine, manuskripti-ma i arhivalijama obitelji Ottoboni, kao i knjižnicama rimskih plemićkih obitelji Borghese i Barberini. Od kraja XIX. st. Vatikanska se biblioteka otvorila znan-stvenicima te je tako postala i studijski centar. Modernizacija je nastavljena u XX. st., kompjutoriziranje kataloga je uvedeno 1985. a od 2002. ima i svoj website. Redoviti elektronički bilten se objavljuje od 2009.

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Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana preservs lots of old and valuable documents but the most important one for Croatian people is the letter of Pope John VIII:

„Dilecto fi lio Branimir - Dear son Branimir“ sent to Croatian Duke Branimir on June 7, 879 from Rome. (BAV, Reg. Vat. I,“Epistolae Ioannis“, ep. 191., fol. 73)

NOVO I SUVREMENO DOBA AEVUM NOVUM AC NOVISSIMUM

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