Chapter IV: , VII (155)

"The first of the Ptolemies, Lagus, not only endeavoured to
render Alexandria one of the most beautiful and most
commercial of cities, he likewise wished her to become the
cradle of science and philosophy. By the advice of an Athenian
emigrant, Demetrius of Phaleros, this prince established a
society of learned and scientific men, the prototype of our
academies and modern institutions. He caused that celebrated
museum to be raised, that became an ornament to the Bruchion;
and here was deposited the noble library, 'a collection,' says
Titus Livius, 'at once a proof of the magnificence of those
kings, and of their love of science.' Philadelphos, the
successor of Lagus, finding that the library of the Bruchion
already numbered 400,000 volumes, and either thinking that the
edifice could not well make room for any more, or being
desirous, from motives of jealousy, to render his name equally
famous by the construction of a similar monument, founded a
second library in the temple of Serapis, called the Serapeum,
situated at some distance from the Bruchion, in another part
of the town. These two libraries were denominated, for a
length of time, the Mother and the Daughter. During the war
with Egypt, Cæsar, having set fire to the king's fleet, which
happened to be anchored in the great port, it communicated
with the Bruchion; the parent library was consumed, and, if
any remains were rescued from the flames, they were, in all
probability, conveyed to the Serapeum. Consequently, ever
after, there can be no question but of the latter. Euergetes
and the other Ptolemies enlarged it successively; and
Cleopatra added 200,000 manuscripts at once from the library
of King Pergamos, given her by Mark Antony. … Aulus Gellius
and Ammianus Marcellus seem to insinuate that the whole of the
Alexandrian library had been destroyed by fire in the time of
Cæsar. … But both are mistaken on this point. Ammianus, in
the rest of his narrative, evidently confounds Serapeum and
Bruchion. … Suetonius (in his life of Domitian) mentions
that this emperor sent some amanuenses to Alexandria, for the
purpose of copying a quantity of books that were wanting in
his library; consequently a library existed in Alexandria a
long while after Cæsar. Besides, we know that the Serapeum was
only destroyed A. D. 301, by the order of Theodosius.
Doubtless the library suffered considerably on this
last-mentioned occasion; but that it still partly existed is
beyond a doubt, according to the testimony of Oroses, who,
twenty-four years later, made a voyage to Alexandria, and
assures us that he 'saw, in several temples, presses full of
books,' the remains of ancient libraries. … The trustworthy
Oroses, in 415, is the last witness we have of the existence
of a library at Alexandria. The numerous Christian writers of
the fifth and sixth centuries, who have handed down to us so
many trifling facts, have not said a word upon this important
subject. We, therefore, have no certain documents upon the
fate of our library from 415 to 636, or, according to others,
640, when the Arabs took possession of Alexandria—a period of
ignorance and barbarism, of war and revolutions, and vain
disputes between a hundred different sects. Now, towards A. D.
636, or 640, the troops of the caliph, Omar, headed by his
lieutenant, Amrou, took possession of Alexandria. For more
than six centuries, nobody in Europe took the trouble of
ascertaining what had become of the library of Alexandria. At
length, in the year 1660, a learned Oxford scholar, Edward
Pococke, who had been twice to the East, and had brought back
a number of Arabian manuscripts, first introduced the Oriental
history of the physician Abulfarage to the learned world, in a
Latin translation. In it we read the following passage:—'In
those days flourished John of Alexandria, whom we have
surnamed the Grammarian, and who adopted the tenets of the
Christian Jacobites. … He lived to the time when Amrou
Ebno'l-As took Alexandria. He went to visit the conqueror; and
Amrou, who was aware of the height of learning and science
that John had attained, treated him with every distinction,
and listened eagerly, to his lectures on philosophy, which
were quite new to the Arabians. Amrou was himself a man of
intellect and discernment, and very clear-headed. He retained
the learned man about his person. John one day said to him,
"You have visited all the stores of Alexandria, and you have
put your seal on all the different things you found there. I
say nothing about those treasures which have any value for
you; but, in good sooth, you might leave us those of which you
make no use." "What then is it that you want?" interrupted
Amrou. "The books of philosophy that are to be found in the
royal treasury," answered John. "I can dispose of nothing,"
Amrou then said, "without the permission of the lord of all
true believers, Omar Ebno'l-Chattab." He therefore wrote to
Omar, informing him of John's request. He received an answer
from Omar in these words. "As to the books you mention,
either, they agree with God's holy book, and then God's book
is all-sufficient without them; or they disagree with God's
book, in which case they ought not to be preserved." And, in
consequence, Amrou Ebno'l-As caused them to be distributed
amongst the different baths of the city, to serve as fuel. In
this manner they were consumed in half-a-year.' When this
account of Abulfarage's was made known in Europe, it was at
once admitted as a fact, without the least question. … Since
Pococke, another Arab historian, likewise a physician, was
discovered, who gave pretty nearly the same account. This was
Abdollatif, who wrote towards 1200, and consequently prior to
Abulfarage. … Abdollatif does not relate any of the
circumstances accessory to the destruction of the library. But
what faith can we put in a writer who tells us that he has
actually seen what could no longer have been in existence in
his time? 'I have seen;' says he, 'the portico and the college
that Alexander the Great caused to be built, and which
contained the splendid library,' &c. Now, these buildings were
situated within the Bruchion; and since the reign of Aurelian,
who had destroyed it—that is to say, at least nine hundred
years before Abdollatif—the Bruchion was a deserted spot,
covered with ruins and rubbish.
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Abulfarage, on the other hand, places the library in the Royal
Treasury; and the anachronism is just as bad. The royal
edifices were all contained within the walls of the Bruchion;
and not one of them could then be left. … As a fact is not
necessarily incontestable because advanced as such by one or
even two historians, several persons of learning and research
have doubted the truth of this assertion. Renaudot (Hist. des
Patriarches d'Alexandrie) had already questioned its
authenticity, by observing: 'This account is rather
suspicious, as is frequently the case with the Arabians.' And,
lastly, Querci, the two Assemani, Villoison, and Gibbon,
completely declared themselves against it. Gibbon at once
expresses his astonishment that two historians, both of Egypt,
should not have said a word about so remarkable an event. The
first of these is Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria, who
lived in that city 500 years after it was taken by the
Saracens, and who gives a long and detailed account, in his
Annals, both of the siege and the succeeding events; the
second is Elmacin, a most veracious writer, the author of a
History of the Saracens, and who especially relates the life
of Omar, and the taking of Alexandria, with its minutest
circumstances. Is it conceivable or to be believed that these
two historians should have been ignorant of so important a
circumstance? That two learned men who would have been deeply
interested in such a loss should have made no mention of it,
though living and writing in Alexandria—Eutychius, too, at no
distant period from the event? and that we should learn it for
the first time from a stranger who wrote, six centuries after,
on the frontiers of Media? Besides, as Gibbon observes, why
should the Caliph Omar, who was no enemy to science, have
acted, in this one instance, in direct opposition to his
character. … To these reasons may be added the remark of a
German writer, M. Reinhard, who observes that Eutychius
(Annals of Eutychius, volume ii. page 316) transcribes the
very words of the letter in which Amrou gives the Caliph Omar
an account of the taking of Alexandria after a long and
obstinate siege. 'I have carried the town by storm,' says he,
'and without any preceding offer of capitulation. I cannot
describe all the treasures it contains; suffice it to say,
that it numbers 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 40,000 taxable
Jews, 400 theatres, 12,000 gardeners who sell vegetables. Your
Mussulmans demand the privilege of pillaging the city, and
sharing the booty.' Omar, in his reply, disapproves of the
request, and expressly forbids all pillage or dilapidation. It
is plain that, in his official report, Amrou seeks to
exaggerate the value of his conquest, and to magnify its
importance, like the diplomatists of our times. He does not
overlook a single hovel, nor a Jew, nor a gardener. How then
could he have forgotten the library, he who, according to
Abulfarage, was a friend to the fine arts and philosophy? …
Elmacin in turn gives us Amrou's letter nearly in the same
terms, and not one word of the library. … We … run no
great risk in drawing the conclusion, from all these premises,
that the library of the Ptolemies no longer existed in 640 at
the taking of Alexandria by the Saracens. … If it be true,
as we have every reason to think, that in 640 … the
celebrated library no longer existed, we may inquire in what
manner it had been dispersed and destroyed since 415 when
Oroses affirms that he saw it? In the first place we must
observe that Oroses only mentions some presses which he saw in
the temples. It was not, therefore, the library of the
Ptolemies as it once existed in the Serapeum. Let us call to
mind, moreover, that ever since the first Roman emperors,
Egypt had been the theatre of incessant civil warfare, and we
shall be surprised that any traces of the library could still
exist in later times."

_Historical Researches on the pretended burning
of the Library of Alexandria by the Saracens
(Fraser's Magazine. April, 1844)._

"After summing up the evidence we have been able to collect in
regard to these libraries, we conclude that almost all the
700,000 volumes of the earlier Alexandrian libraries had been
destroyed before the capture of the city by the Arabs; that
another of considerable size, but chiefly of Christian
literature, had been collected in the 250 years just preceding
the Arab occupation; and that Abulpharaj, in a statement that
is not literally true, gives, in the main, a correct account
of the final destruction of the Alexandrian Library."

_C. W. Super,
Alexandria and its Libraries
(National Quarterly Review, December, 1875)._

ALSO IN:
_E. Edwards,
Memoirs of Libraries,
book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

_E. Edwards,
Libraries and the Founders of Libraries,
chapter 1._

See, also,
EDUCATION, ANCIENT: ALEXANDRIA;
and ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246.

LIBRARIES:
Pergamum.

See PERGAMUM.

LIBRARIES:
Rome.

Pliny states that C. Asinius Pollio was the first who
established a Public Library in Rome. But "Lucullus was
undoubtedly before him in this claim upon the gratitude of the
lovers of books. Plutarch tells us expressly that not only was
the Library of Lucullus remarkable for its extent and for the
beauty of the volumes which composed it, but that the use he
made of them was even more to his honour than the pains he had
taken in their acquisition. The Library, he says, 'was open to
all. The Greeks who were at Rome resorted thither, as it were
to the retreat of the Muses.' It is important to notice that,
according to Pliny, the benefaction of Asinius Pollio to the
literate among the Romans was 'ex manubiis.' This expression,
conjoined with the fact that the statue of M. Varro was placed
in the Library of Pollio, has led a recent distinguished
historian of Rome under the Empire, Mr. Merivale, to suggest,
that very probably Pollio only made additions to that Library
which, as we know from Suetonius, Julius Cæsar had directed to
be formed for public use under the care of Varro. These
exploits of Pollio, which are most likely to have yielded him
the 'spoils of war,' were of a date many years subsequent to
the commission given by Cæsar to Varro. It has been usually,
and somewhat rashly perhaps, inferred that this project, like
many other schemes that were surging in that busy brain,
remained a project only. In the absence of proof either way,
may it not be reasonably conjectured that Varro's bust was
placed in the Library called Pollio's because Varro had in
truth carried out Cæsar's plan, with the ultimate concurrence
and aid of Pollio? This Library—by whomsoever formed—was
probably in the 'atrium libertatis' on the Aventine Mount.
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From Suetonius we further learn that Augustus added porticoes
to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Mount, with (as
appears from monumental inscriptions to those who had charge
of them) two distinct Libraries of Greek and Latin authors;
that Tiberius added to the Public Libraries the works of the
Greek poets Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius,—authors whom
he especially admired and tried to imitate,—and also their
statues; that Caligula (in addition to a scheme for
suppressing Homer) had thoughts of banishing both the works
and the busts of Virgil and of Livy—characterizing the one
as a writer of no genius and of little learning, and the other
(not quite so unfortunately) as a careless and verbose
historian—from all the Libraries; and that Domitian early in
his reign restored at vast expense the Libraries in the
Capitol which had been burnt, and to this end both collected
MSS. from various countries, and sent scribes to Alexandria
expressly to copy or to correct works which were there
preserved. In addition to the Libraries mentioned by
Suetonius, we read in Plutarch of the Library dedicated by
Octavia to the memory of Marcellus; in Aulus Gellius of a
Library in the Palace of Tiberius and of another in the Temple
of Peace; and in Dion Cassius of the more famous Ulpian
Library founded by Trajan. This Library, we are told by
Vopiscus, was in his day added, by way of adornment, to the
Baths of Diocletian. Of private Libraries amongst the Romans
one of the earliest recorded is that which Emilius Paulus
found amongst the spoils of Perseus, and which he is said to
have shared between his sons. The collection of Tyrunnion,
some eighty years later (perhaps), amounted, according to a
passage in Suidas, to 30,000 volumes. That of Lucullus—which,
some will think, ought to be placed in this category—has been
mentioned already. With that—the most famous of all—which
was the delight and the pride of Cicero, every reader of his
letters has an almost personal familiarity, extending even to
the names and services of those who were employed in binding
and in placing the books. … Of the Libraries of the
long-buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum there is not a
scintilla of information extant, other than that which has
been gathered from their ruins. At one time great hopes were
entertained of important additions to classical learning from
remains, the discovery of which has so largely increased our
knowledge both of the arts and of the manners of the Romans.
But all effort in this direction has hitherto been either
fruitless or else only tantalizing, from the fragmentary
character of the results attained."

_E. Edwards,
Memoirs of Libraries,
pages 26-29._

"Most houses had a library, which, according to Vitruvius,
ought to face the east in order to admit the light of the
morning, and to prevent the books from becoming mouldy. At
Herculaneum a library with bookcases containing 1,700 scrolls
has been discovered. The grammarian Epaphroditus possessed a
library of 30,000, and Sammanicus Serenus, the tutor of the
younger Gordian, one of 62,000 books. Seneca ridicules the
fashionable folly of illiterate men who adorned their walls
with thousands of books, the titles of which were the delight
of the yawning owner. According to Publius Victor, Rome
possessed twenty-nine public libraries, the first of which was
opened by Asinius Polio in the forecourt of the Temple of
Peace; two others were founded during the reign of Augustus,
viz., the Octavian and the Palatine libraries. Tiberius,
Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan added to their number; the
Ulpian library, founded by the last-mentioned emperor, being
the most important of all."

_E. Guhl and W. Koner,
The Life of the Greeks and Romans,
p. 531._

LIBRARIES:
Herculaneum.

"Herculaneum remained a subterranean city from the year 79 to
the year 1706. In the latter year some labourers who were
employed in digging a well came upon a statue, a circumstance
which led—not very speedily but in course of time … —to
systematic excavations. Almost half a century passed, however,
before the first roll of papyrus was discovered, near to
Portici at a depth from the surface of about 120 English feet.
In the course of a year or two, some 250 rolls—most of them
Greek—had been found. … In 1754, further and more careful
researches were made by Camillo Paderni, who succeeded in
getting together no less than 337 Greek volumes and 18 Latin
volumes. The latter were of larger dimensions than the Greek,
and in worse condition. Very naturally, great interest was
excited by these discoveries amongst scholars in all parts of
Europe. In the years 1754 and 1755 the subject was repeatedly
brought before the Royal Society by Mr. Locke and other of its
fellows, sometimes in the form of communications from Paderni
himself; at other times from the notes and observations of
travellers. In one of these papers the disinterred rolls are
described as appearing at first 'like roots of wood, all
black, and seeming to be only of one piece. One of them
falling on the ground, it broke in the middle, and many
letters were observed, by which it was first known that the
rolls were of papyrus. … They were in wooden cases, so much
burnt, … that they cannot be recovered.' … At the
beginning of the present century the attention of the British
government was, to some extent, attracted to this subject. …
Leave was at length obtained from the Neapolitan government
for a literary mission to Herculaneum, which was entrusted to
Mr. Hayter, one of the chaplains to the Prince Regent. But the
results were few and unsatisfactory. … The Commission
subsequently entrusted to Dr. Sickler of Hildburghausen was
still more unfortunate. … In 1818, a committee of the House
of Commons was appointed to inquire into the matter. It
reported that, after an expenditure of about £1,100, no useful
results had been attained. This inquiry and the experiments of
Sickler led Sir Humphrey Davy to investigate the subject, and
to undertake two successive journeys into Italy for its
thorough elucidation. His account of his researches is highly
interesting. … 'My experiments,' says Sir Humphrey Davy, …
'soon convinced me that the nature of these MSS. had been
generally misunderstood; that they had not, as is usually
supposed, been carbonized by the operation of fire, … but
were in a state analogous to peat or Bovey coal, the leaves
being generally cemented into one mass by a peculiar substance
which had formed during the fermentation and chemical change
of the vegetable matter comprising them, in a long course of
ages. The nature of this substance being known, the
destruction of it became a subject of obvious chemical
investigation; and I was fortunate enough to find means of
accomplishing this, without injuring the characters or
destroying the texture of the MSS.' These means Sir Humphrey
Davy has described very minutely in his subsequent
communications to the Royal Society.
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Briefly, they may be said to have consisted in a mixture of a
solution of glue with alcohol, enough to gelatinize it,
applied by a camel's hair brush, for the separation of the
layers. The process was sometimes assisted by the agency of
ether, and the layers were dried by the action of a stream of
air warmed gradually up to the temperature of boiling water.
'After the chemical operation, the leaves of most of the
fragments separated perfectly from each other, and the Greek
characters were in a high degree distinct. … The MSS. were
probably on shelves of wood, which were broken down when the
roofs of the houses yielded to the weight of the
superincumbent mass. Hence, many of them were crushed and
folded in a moist state, and the leaves of some pressed
together in a perpendicular direction … in confused heaps;
in these heaps the exterior MSS. … must have been acted on
by the water; and as the ancient ink was composed of finely
divided charcoal suspended in a solution of glue or gum,
wherever the water percolated continuously, the characters
were more or less erased.' … Sir Humphrey Davy proceeds to
state that, according to the information given him, the number
of MSS. and fragments of MSS. originally deposited in the
Naples Museum was 1,696; that of these 88 had then been
unrolled and found to be legible; that 319 others had been
operated upon, and more or less unrolled, but were illegible;
that 24 had been sent abroad as presents; and that of the
remaining 1,265—which he had carefully examined—the majority
were either small fragments, or MSS. so crushed and mutilated
as to offer little hope of separation; whilst only from 80 to
120 offered a probability of success (and he elsewhere
adds:—'this estimate, as my researches proceeded, appeared
much too high'). … 'Of the 88 unrolled MSS. … the great
body consists of works of Greek philosophers or sophists; nine
are of Epicurus; thirty-two bear the name of Philodemus, three
of Demetrius, one of each of these authors:—Colotes,
Polystratus, Carneades, Chrysippus; and the subjects of these
works, … and of those the authors of which are unknown, are
either Natural or Moral Philosophy, Medicine, Criticism, and
general observations on Arts, Life, and Manners.'"

_E. Edwards,
Memoirs of Libraries,
volume 1, book 1, chapter 5._

LIBRARIES:
Constantinople.

"When Constantine the Great, in the year 336, made Byzantium
the seat of his empire, he in a great measure newly built the
city, decorated it with numerous splendid edifices, and called
it after his own name. Desirous of making reparation to the
Christians, for the injuries they had sustained during the
reign of his tyrannical predecessor, this prince commanded the
most diligent search to be made after those books which had been
doomed to destruction. He caused transcripts to be made of
such books as had escaped the Diocletian persecution; to these
he added others, and with the whole formed a valuable Library
at Constantinople. On the death of Constantine, the number of
books contained in the Imperial Library was only six thousand
nine hundred; but it was successively enlarged by the
emperors, Julian and Theodosius the younger, the latter of
whom augmented it to one hundred thousand volumes. Of these,
more than half were burnt in the seventh century, by command
of the emperor Leo III., in order to destroy all the monuments
that might be quoted in proof against his opposition to the
worship of images. In this library was deposited the only
authentic copy of the Council of Nice: it has also been
asserted that the works of Homer, written in golden letters,
were consumed at the same time, together with a magnificent
copy of the Four Gospels, bound in plates of gold to the
weight of fifteen pounds, and enriched with precious stones.
The convulsions that weakened the lower empire, were by no
means favourable to the interests of literature. During the
reign of Constantine Porphyrogennetus (in the eleventh entry)
literature flourished for a short time: and he is said to have
employed many learned Greeks in collecting books for a library,
the arrangement of which he superintended himself. The final
subversion of the Eastern Empire, and the capture of
Constantinople by Mohammed II., A. D. 1453, dispersed the
literati of Greece over Western Europe: but the Imperial
Library was preserved by the express command of the conqueror,
and continued to be kept in some apartments of the Seraglio;
until Mourad (or Amurath) IV., in a fit of devotion,
sacrificed (as it is reported) all the books in this Library
to his hatred against the Christians."

_T. H. Horne,
Introduction to the Study of Bibliography,
pages 23-25._

LIBRARIES:
Tripoli.
Destruction of Library by Crusaders.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111.

LIBRARIES:
Mediæval.

Monastic Libraries.

"In every monastery there was established first a library,
then great studios, where, to increase the number of books,
skilful caligraphers transcribed manuscripts; and finally,
schools, open to all those who had need of, or desire for,
instruction. At Montierender, at Lorsch, at Corvey, at Fulda,
at St. Gall, at Reichenau, at Nonantula, at Monte Cassino, at
Wearmouth, at St. Albans, at Croyland, there were famous
libraries. At St. Michael, at Luneburg, there were two—one
for the abbot and one for the monks. In other abbeys, as at
Hirschau, the abbot himself took his place in the Scriptorium,
where many other monks were occupied in copying manuscripts.
At St. Riquier, books bought for high prices, or transcribed
with the utmost care, were regarded as the most valuable
jewels of the monastery. 'Here,' says the chronicler of the
abbey, counting up with innocent pride the volumes which it
contained—'here are the riches of the cloister, the treasures
of the celestial life, which fatten the soul by their
sweetness. This is how we fulfil the excellent precept, Love
the study of the Scriptures, and you will not love vice.' If
we were called upon to enumerate the principal centres of
learning in this century, we should be obliged to name nearly
all the great abbeys whose founders we have mentioned, for
most of them were great homes of knowledge. … The principal
and most constant occupation of the learned Benedictine nuns
was the transcription of manuscripts. It can never be known
how many services to learning and history were rendered by
their delicate hands throughout the middle ages. They brought
to the work a dexterity, an elegance, and an assiduity which
the monks themselves could not attain, and we owe to them some
of the most beautiful specimens of the marvellous caligraphy of
the period. … Nuns, therefore, were the rivals of monks in
the task of enlarging and fertilising the field of Catholic
learning.
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Every one is aware that the copying of manuscripts was one of
the habitual occupations of monks. By it they fed the
claustral libraries already spoken of, and which are the
principal source of modern knowledge. Thus we must again refer
to the first beginning of the Monastic Orders to find the
earliest traces of a custom which from that time was, as it
were, identified with the practices of religious life. In the
depths of the Thebaïde, in the primitive monasteries of
Tabenna, every house … had its library. There is express
mention made of this in the rule of St. Benedict. … In the
seventh century, St. Benedict Biscop, founder and abbot of
Wearmouth in England, undertook five sea-voyages to search for
and purchase books for his abbey, to which each time he
brought back a large cargo. In the ninth century, Loup of
Ferrières transformed his monastery of St. Josse-sur-Mer into
a kind of depot for the trade in books which was carried on
with England. About the same time, during the wars which
ravaged Lombardy, most of the literary treasures which are now
the pride of the Ambrosian library were being collected in the
abbey of Bobbio. The monastery of Pomposa, near Ravenna, had,
according to contemporaries, a finer library than those of
Rome or of any other town in the world. In the eleventh
century, the library of the abbey of Croyland numbered 3,000
volumes. The library of Novalese had 6,700, which the monks
saved at the risk of their lives when their abbey was
destroyed by the Saracens in 905. Hirschau contained an
immense number of manuscripts. But, for the number and value
of its books, Fulda eclipsed all the monasteries of Germany,
and perhaps of the whole Christian world. On the other hand,
some writers assure us that Monte Cassino, under the Abbot
Didier, the friend of Gregory VII., possessed the richest
collection which it was possible to find. The libraries thus
created by the labours of monks became, as it were, the
intellectual arsenals of princes and potentates. … There
were also collections of books in all the cathedrals, in all
the collegiate churches, and in many of the castles. Much has
been said of the excessive price of certain books during the
middle ages: Robertson and his imitators, in support of this
theory, are fond of quoting the famous collection of homilies
that Grecia Countess of Anjou bought, in 1056, for two hundred
sheep, a measure of wheat, one of millet, one of rye, several
marten-skins, and four pounds of silver. An instance like this
always produces its effect; but these writers forgot to say
that the books bought for such high prices were admirable
specimens of caligraphy, of painting, and of carving. It would
be just as reasonable to quote the exorbitant sums paid at
sales by bibliomaniacs of our days, in order to prove that
since the invention of printing, books have been excessive in
price. Moreover, the ardent fondness of the Countess Grecia
for beautiful books had been shared by other amateurs of a
much earlier date. Bede relates that Alfred, King of
Northumbria in the seventh century, gave eight hides of land
to St. Benedict Biscop in exchange for a Cosmography which
that book-loving abbot had bought at Rome. The monks loved
their books with a passion which has never been surpassed in
modern times. … It is an error to … suppose that books of
theology or piety alone filled the libraries of the monks.
Some enemies of the religious orders have, indeed, argued that
this was the case; but the proof of the contrary is evident in
all documents relating to the subject. The catalogues of the
principal monastic libraries during those centuries which
historians regard as most barbarous, are still in existence;
and these catalogues amply justify the sentence of the great
Leibnitz, when he said, 'Books and learning were preserved by
the monasteries.' It is acknowledged that if, on one hand, the
Benedictines settled in Iceland collected the Eddas and the
principal traditions of the Scandinavian mythology, on the
other all the monuments of Greece and Rome which escaped the
devastations of barbarians were saved by the monks of Italy,
France, and Germany, and by them alone. And if in some
monasteries the scarcity of parchment and the ignorance of the
superiors permitted the destruction, by copyists, of a certain
small number of precious works, how can we forget that without
these same copyists we should possess nothing—absolutely
nothing—of classic antiquity? … Alcuin enumerates among the
books in the library at York the works of Aristotle, Cicero,
Pliny, Virgil, Statius, Lucan, and of Trogus Pompeïus. In his
correspondence with Charlemagne he quotes Ovid, Horace,
Terence, and Cicero, acknowledging that in his youth he had
been more moved by the tears of Dido than by the Psalms of
David."

_Count de Montalembert,
The Monks of the West,
book 18, chapter 4 (volume 6)._

"It is in the great houses of the Benedictine Order that we
find the largest libraries, such as in England at Bury St.
Edmund's, Glastonbury, Peterborough, Heading, St. Alban's,
and, above all, that of Christ Church in Canterbury, probably
the earliest library formed in England. Among the other
English monasteries of the libraries of which we still possess
catalogues or other details, are St. Peter's at York,
described in the eighth century by Alcuin, St. Cuthbert's at
Durham, and St. Augustine's at Canterbury. At the dissolution
of the monasteries their libraries were dispersed, and the
basis of the great modern libraries is the volumes thus
scattered over England. In general, the volumes were disposed
much as now, that is to say, upright, and in large cases
affixed to a wall, often with doors. The larger volumes at
least were in many cases chained, so that they could only be
used within about six feet of their proper place; and since
the chain was always riveted on the fore-edge of one of the
sides of a book, the back of the volume had to be thrust first
into the shelf, leaving the front edge of the leaves exposed
to view. Many old volumes bear a mark in ink on this front
edge; and when this is the case, we may be sure that it was
once chained in a library; and usually a little further
investigation will disclose the mark of a rivet on one of the
sides. Regulations were carefully made to prevent the mixture
of different kinds of books, and their overcrowding or
inconvenient position; while an organized system of lending
was in vogue, by which at least once a year, and less formally
at shorter intervals, the monks could change or renew the
volumes already on loan. … Let us take an example of the
arrangement of a monastic library of no special distinction in
A. D. 1400,—that at Titchfield Abbey,—describing it in the
words of the register of the monastery itself, only
translating the Latin into English.
{2008}
'The arrangement of the library of the monastery of Tychefeld
is this:—There are in the library of Tychefeld four cases
(columnae) in which to place books, of which two, the first
and second, are on the eastern face; on the southern face is
the third, and on the northern face the fourth. And each of
them has eight shelves (gradus), marked with a letter and
number affixed on the front of each shelf, that is to say, on
the lower board of each of the aforesaid shelves; certain
letters, however, are excepted, namely A, H, K, L, M, O, P, Q,
which have no numbers affixed, because all the volumes to
which one of those letters belongs are contained in the shelf
to which that letter is assigned. [That is, the shelves with
the letters A, H, K, etc., have a complete class of books in
each, and in no case does that class overflow into a second
shelf, so there was no need of marking these shelves with
numbers as well as letters, in the way in which the rest were
marked. Thus we should find 'B 1,' 'B 2,' 'B 3,' … 'B 7,'
because B filled seven shelves; but 'A' only, because A filled
one shelf alone.] So all and singular the volumes of the said
library are fully marked on the first leaf and elsewhere on
the shelf belonging to the book, with certain numbered
letters. And in order that what is in the library may be more
quickly found, the marking of the shelves of the said library,
the inscriptions in the books, and the references in the
register, in all points agree with each other. Anno Domini
MCCCC.' … Titchfield Abbey was a Præmonstratensian house,
founded in the thirteenth century, and never specially rich or
prominent; yet we find it with a good library of sixty-eight
books in theology, thirty-nine in Canon and Civil Law,
twenty-nine in Medicine, thirty-seven in Arts, and in all
three hundred and twenty-six volumes, many containing several
treatises, so that the total number of works was considerably
over a thousand."

_F. Madan,
Books in Manuscript,
pp. 76-79._

LIBRARIES:
Renaissance.

Italy.

On the revival of learning in Italy, "scarcity of books was at
first a chief impediment to the study of antiquity. Popes and
princes and even great religious institutions possessed far
fewer books than many farmers of the present age. The library
belonging to the Cathedral Church of S. Martino at Lucca in
the ninth century contained only nineteen volumes of
abridgements from ecclesiastical commentaries. The Cathedral
of Novara in 1212 could boast copies of Boethius, Priscian,
the Code of Justinian, the Decretals, and the Etymology of
Isidorus, besides a Bible and some devotional treatises. This
slender stock passed for great riches. Each of the precious
volumes in such a collection was an epitome of mediæval art.
Its pages were composed of fine vellum adorned with pictures.
The initial letters displayed elaborate flourishes and
exquisitely illuminated groups of figures. The scribe took
pains to render his caligraphy perfect, and to ornament the
margins with crimson, gold, and blue. Then he handed the
parchment sheets to the binder, who encased them in rich
settings of velvet or carved ivory and wood, embossed with
gold and precious stones. The edges were gilt and stamped with
patterns. The clasps were of wrought silver chased with
niello. The price of such masterpieces was enormous. … Of
these MSS. the greater part were manufactured in the
cloisters, and it was here too that the martyrdom of ancient
authors took place. Lucretius and Livy gave place to
chronicles, antiphonaries, and homilies. Parchment was
extremely dear, and the scrolls which nobody could read might
be scraped and washed. Accordingly, the copyist erased the
learning of the ancients, and filled the fair blank space he
gained with litanies. At the same time it is but just to the
monks to add that palimpsests have occasionally been found in
which ecclesiastical works have yielded place to copies of the
Latin poets used in elementary education. Another obstacle to
the diffusion of learning was the incompetence of the
copyists. It is true that at the great universities
'stationarii,' who supplied the text-books in use to students,
were certified and subjected to the control of special censors
called 'Preciani.' Yet their number was not large, and when
they quitted the routine to which they were accustomed their
incapacity betrayed itself by numerous errors. Petrarch's
invective against the professional copyists shows the depth to
which the art had sunk. 'Who,' he exclaims, 'will discover a
cure for the ignorance and vile sloth of these copyists, who
spoil everything and turn it to nonsense? If Cicero, Livy, and
other illustrious ancients were to return to life, do you
think they would understand their own works? There is no check
upon these copyists, selected without examination or test of
their capacity.' … At the same time the copyists formed a
necessary and flourishing class of craftsmen. They were well
paid. … Under these circumstances it was usual for even the
most eminent scholars, like Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Poggio,
to make their own copies of MSS. Niccolo de' Niccoli
transcribed nearly the whole of the codices that formed the
nucleus of the Library of the Mark. … It is clear that the
first step toward the revival of learning implied three
things: first, the collection of MSS. wherever they could be
saved from the indolence of the monks; secondly, the formation
of libraries for their preservation; and, thirdly, the
invention of an art whereby they might be multiplied cheaply,
conveniently, and accurately. The labour involved in the
collection of classical manuscripts had to be performed by a
few enthusiastic scholars, who received no help from the
universities and their academical scribes, and who met with no
sympathy in the monasteries they were bent on ransacking. …
The monks performed at best the work of earthworms, who
unwittingly preserve fragments of Greek architecture from
corrosion by heaping mounds of mould and rubbish round them.
Meanwhile the humanists went forth with the instinct of
explorers to release the captives and awake the dead. From the
convent libraries of Italy, from the museums of
Constantinople, from the abbeys of Germany and Switzerland and
France, the slumbering spirits of the ancients had to be
evoked. … This work of discovery began with Petrarch. … It
was carried on by Boccaccio. The account given by Benvenuto da
Imola of Boccaccio's visit to Monte Cassino brings vividly
before us both the ardour of these first explorers and the
apathy of the Benedictines (who have sometimes been called the
saviours of learning) with regard to the treasures of their
own libraries. …
{2009}
'Desirous of seeing the collection of books, which he
understood to be a very choice one, he modestly asked a
monk—for he was always most courteous in manners—to open the
library, as a favour, for him. The monk answered stiffly,
pointing to a steep staircase, "Go up; it is open." Boccaccio
went up gladly; but he found that the place which held so
great a treasure was without door or key. He entered, and saw
grass sprouting on the windows, and all the books and benches
thick with dust. In his astonishment he began to open and turn
the leaves of first one tome and then another, and found many
and divers volumes of ancient and foreign works. Some of them
had lost several sheets; others were snipped and pared all
round the text, and mutilated in various ways. At length,
lamenting that the toil and study of so many illustrious men
should have passed into the hands of most abandoned wretches,
he departed with tears and sighs. Coming to the cloister, he
asked a monk whom he met, why those valuable books had been so
disgracefully mangled. He answered that the monks, seeking to
gain a few soldi, were in the habit of cutting off sheets and
making psalters, which they sold to boys. The margins too they
manufactured into charms, and sold to women.' … What Italy
contained of ancient codices soon saw the light. The visit of
Poggio Bracciolini to Constance (1414) opened up for Italian
scholars the stores that lay neglected in transalpine
monasteries. … The treasures he unearthed at Reichenau,
Weingarten, and above all S. Gallen, restored to Italy many
lost masterpieces of Latin literature, and supplied students
with full texts of authors who had hitherto been known in
mutilated copies. The account he gave of his visit to S.
Gallen in a Latin letter to a friend is justly celebrated. …
'In the middle [he says] of a well-stocked library, too large
to catalogue at present, we discovered Quintilian, safe as yet
and sound, though covered with dust and filthy with neglect
and age. The books, you must know, were not housed according
to their worth, but were lying in a most foul and obscure
dungeon at the very bottom of a tower, a place into which
condemned criminals would hardly have been thrust; and I am
firmly persuaded that if anyone would but explore those
ergastula of the barbarians wherein they incarcerate such men,
we should meet with like good fortune in the case of many
whose funeral orations have long ago been pronounced. Besides
Quintilian, we exhumed the three first books and a half of the
fourth book of the Argonautica of Flaccus, and the
Commentaries of Asconius Pedianus upon eight orations of
Cicero.' … Never was there a time in the world's history
when money was spent more freely upon the collection and
preservation of MSS., and when a more complete machinery was
put in motion for the sake of securing literary treasures."

_J. A. Symonds,
Renaissance in Italy: The Revival of Learning,
chapter 3._

LIBRARIES: Modern.
Europe: Rise and growth of the greater Libraries.

In a work entitled "Essai Statistique sur les Bibliothèques de
Vienne," published in 1835, M. Adrien Balbi entered into an
examination of the literary and numerical value of the
principal libraries of ancient and modern times. M. Balbi, in
this work, shows that "the Imperial Library of Vienna,
regularly increasing from the epoch of its formation, by means
equally honorable to the sovereign and to the nation, held,
until the French revolution, the first place among the
libraries of Europe. Since that period, several other
institutions have risen to a much higher numerical rank. …
No one of the libraries of the first class, now in existence,
dates beyond the fifteenth century. The Vatican, the origin of
which has been frequently carried back to the days of St.
Hilarius, in 465, cannot, with any propriety, be said to have
deserved the name of library before the reign of Martin the
Fifth, by whose order it was removed from Avignon to Rome in
1417. And even then, a strict attention to the force of the
term would require us to withhold from it this title, until
the period of its final organization by Nicholas the Fifth, in
1447. It is difficult to speak with certainty concerning the
libraries, whether public or private, which are supposed to
have existed previous to the fifteenth century, both on
account of the doubtful authority and indefiniteness of the
passages in which they are mentioned, and the custom which so
readily obtained, in those dark ages, of dignifying every
petty collection with the name of library. But many libraries
of the fifteenth century being still in existence, and others
having been preserved long enough to make them the subject of
historical inquiry before their dissolution, it becomes easier
to fix, with satisfactory accuracy, the date of their
foundation. We find accordingly, that, including the Vatican,
and the libraries of Vienna, Ratisbon, and the Laurentian of
Florence, which are a few years anterior to it, no less than
ten were formed between the years 1430 and 1500. The increase
of European libraries has generally been slowly progressive,
although there have been periods of sudden augmentation in
nearly all. Most of them began with a small number of
manuscripts, sometimes with a few printed volumes, and often
without any. To these, gradual accessions were made, from the
different sources, which have always been more or less at the
command of the sovereigns and nobles of Europe. In 1455, the
Vatican contained 5,000 manuscripts. … Far different was the
progress of the Royal Library of Paris. The origin of this
institution is placed in the year 1595, the date of its
removal from Fontainebleau to Paris by order of Henry the
Fourth. In 1660, it contained but 1,435 printed volumes. In
the course of the following year, this number was raised to
16,746, both printed volumes and manuscripts. During the
ensuing eight years the library was nearly doubled; and before
the close of the next century, it was supposed to have been
augmented by upwards of 100,000 volumes more."

_G. W. Greene,
Historical Studies,
pages 278-281._

"The oldest of the great libraries of printed books is
probably that of Vienna, which dates from 1440, and is said to
have been opened to the public as early as 1575. The Town
Library of Ratisbon dates from 1430; St. Mark's Library at
Venice, from 1468; the Town Library of Frankfort, from 1484;
that of Hamburg, from 1529; of Strasburg, from 1531; of
Augsburg, from 1537; those of Berne and Geneva, from 1550;
that of Basel, from 1564. The Royal Library of Copenhagen was
founded about 1550. In 1671 it possessed 10,000 volumes; in
1748, about 65,000; in 1778, 100,000; in 1820, 300,000; and it
now contains 410,000 volumes. The National Library of Paris was
founded in 1595, but was not made public until 1737. In 1640
it contained about 17,000 volumes; in 1684, 50,000; in 1775,
150,000; in 1790, 200,000."

_E. Edwards,
A Statistical View of the Principal Public Libraries in
Europe and the United States Of America,
(Journal of the Statistical Society, August., 1848)._

{2010}

LIBRARIES: Modern.
Germany.

According to "Minerva" (the "Year-book of the Learned World"),
for 1893-94, the Royal Library at Berlin contains 850,000
printed books and 24,622 manuscripts; the Münich University
Library, 370,000 books and 50,000 pamphlets, including 2,101
incunabula; the Leipsic University Library, 500,000 printed
books, and 4,000 manuscripts; Heidelberg University Library,
400,000 bound volumes (including 1,000 incunabula), and
175,000 pamphlets and "dissertationen," with a large
collection of manuscripts; Dresden Royal Public Library,
300,000 printed books (including 2,000 incunabula), 6,000
manuscripts, and 20,000 maps; Freiburg University Library,
250,000 volumes and over 500 manuscripts; Königsberg
University Library, 220,000 volumes and 1,100 manuscripts;
Tübingen University Library, 300,000 volumes and 3,500
manuscripts; Jena University Library, 200,000 volumes and
100,000 "dissertationen"; Halle University Library, 182,000
books and 800 manuscripts, besides 12,800 books, 35,000
pamphlets and 1,040 manuscripts in the Ponickausche
Bibliothek, which is united with the University Library;
Hamburg City Library, about 500,000 printed books and 5,000
manuscripts; Frankfort City Library (April, 1893), 326,139
volumes; Cologne City Library, 105,000 volumes, including
2,000 incunabula; Augsburg City and Provincial Library, about
200,000 volumes (including 1,760 incunabula) and 2,000
manuscripts; Göttingen University Library, 456,000 volumes of
books and 5,300 manuscripts; Gotha Public Library, 200,000
printed books, including 1,029 incunabula, and 7,037
manuscripts, of which 3,500 are oriental; Greifswald
University Library, 143 volumes of printed books and about 800
manuscripts; Bamberg Royal Public Library, 300,000 volumes,
3,132 manuscripts; Berlin University Library, 142,129 volumes;
Bonn University Library, 219,000 volumes, including 1,235
incunabula, and 1,273 manuscripts; Bremen City Library,
120,000 volumes; Breslau University Library, 300,000 volumes,
including about 2,500 incunabula, and about 3,000 manuscripts;
Breslau City Library, 150,000 volumes and 3,000 manuscripts;
Erlangen University Library, 180,000 volumes; Hanover Royal
Public Library, 180,000 books and 3,500 manuscripts; Hanover
City Library, 47,000 volumes; Carlsruhe Grand-ducal Library,
159,842 books and 3,754 manuscripts; Kiel University Library,
217,039 volumes, 2,375 manuscripts; Colmar City Library,
80,000 volumes; Marburg University Library, 150,000 volumes;
Strasburg University Library, 700,000 volumes; Strasburg City
Library, 90,000 volumes; Weimar Grand-ducal Library, 223,000
volumes and 2,000 manuscripts; Würzburg University Library,
300,000 volumes.

_Minerva, 1893-94._

"The Munich library, … in matter of administration,
resembles the British Museum. Here one finds carefully
catalogued that great wealth of material that appears only in
doctorate theses, and for this reason is most valuable to the
historic student. No tedious formalities are insisted upon,
and orders for books are not subjected to long delays. The
Vienna library moves slowly, as though its machinery were
retarded by the weight of its royal imperial name. The
catalogue is not accessible, the attendants are not anxious to
please, and the worker feels no special affection for the
institution. But at the royal library of Berlin there exists
an opposite state of affairs—with the catalogue at hand one
can readily give the information needful in filling up the
call card. This being a lending library, one occasionally
meets with disappointment, but, as the privilege of borrowing
is easily had, this feature can have a compensatory side. The
most marked peculiarity found here is the periodic delivery of
books. All books ordered before nine o'clock are delivered at
eleven; those before eleven, at one; those before one, at
three; and those after three are delivered the same day if
possible. This causes some delay, but as soon as the rule is
known it has no drawback for the continuous user, and for the
benefit of one who wants only a single order there is placed
at the outer door of the building a box into which one can
deposit the call card, and returning at the proper time find
the book waiting in the reading room above. This saves the
climbing of many steps, and enables one to perform other
duties between ordering and receiving. As far as I know, here
alone does one purchase the call cards, but as the price is
only twenty cents per hundred the cost is not an important
item."

_J. H. Gore,
Library Facilities for Study in Europe
(Educational Review, June, 1893)._

In Berlin, "the report of the city government for 1889-00
reckons 25 public free libraries; 334,837 books were read by
14,900 persons, i. e., 17,219 volumes less than last year. The
expenses were 26,490 marks, the allowance from the city
treasury 23,400 marks [less than $6,000]."

_The Library Journal, May, 1892._

LIBRARIES: France:
The Bibliothèque Nationale.