The enlightenment of an age of ignorance cannot be attributed to any single person; yet it has been said with some justice, that as the mediæval darkness lifted, one figure was seen standing in advance, and that Petrarch was rightly hailed as 'the harbinger of day.' His fame rests not so much on his poems as upon his incessant labours in the task of educating his countrymen. Petrarch was devoted to books from his boyhood. His youth was passed near Avignon, 'on the banks of the windy Rhone.' After receiving the ordinary instruction in grammar and rhetoric, he passed four years at Montpellier, and proceeded to study law at Bologna. 'I kept my terms in Civil Law,' he said, 'and made some progress; but I gave up the subject on becoming my own master, not because I disliked the Law, which no doubt is full of the Roman learning, but because it is so often perverted by evil-minded men.' He seems to have worked for a time under his friend Cino of Pistoia, and to have attended the lectures of the jurist Andrea, whose daughter Novella is said to have sometimes taken the class 'with a little curtain in front of her beautiful face.' While studying atBologna, Petrarch made his first collection of books instead of devoting himself to the Law. His old father once paid him a visit and began burning the parchments on a funeral pile: the boy's supplications and promises saved the poor remainder. He tried hard to follow his father's practical advice, but always in vain; 'Nature called him in another direction, and it is idle to struggle against her.'
On Petrarch's return to Avignon he obtained the friendship of Cardinal Colonna: and here the whole course of his life was fixed when he first saw Laura 'in a green dress embroidered with violets.' Her face was stamped upon his mind, and haunted him through all efforts at repose: and perhaps it is to her influence that he owed his rank among the lyrical poets and the crown bestowed at Rome. His whole life was thenceforth devoted to the service of the book. He declared that he had the writing-disease, and was the victim of a general epidemic. 'All the world is taking up the writer's part, which ought to be confined to a few: the number of the sick increases and the disease becomes daily more virulent.' A victim of the mania himself, he laughs at his own misfortune: yet it might have been better, he thought, to have been a labourer or a weaver at the loom. 'There are several kinds of melancholia: and some madmen will write books, just as others toss pebbles in their hands.' As for literary fame, it is but a harvest of thin air, 'and it is only fit for sailors to watch a breeze and to whistle for a wind.'
Petrarch collected books in many parts of Europe. In 1329, when he was twenty-five years of age, he made a tour through Switzerland to the cities of Flanders. The Flemish schools had lost something of their ancient fame since the development of the University of Paris. Several fine collections of books were still preserved in the monasteries. The Abbey of Laubes was especially rich in biblical commentaries and other works of criticism, which were all destroyed afterwards in a fire, except a Vulgate of the eighth century that happened to be required for use at the Council of Trent. Petrarch described his visit to Liège in a letter to a friend; 'When we arrived I heard that there was a good supply of books, so I kept all my party there until I had one oration of Cicero transcribed by a colleague, and another in my own writing, which I afterwards published in Italy; but in that fair city of the barbarians it was very difficult to get any ink, and what I did procure was as yellow as saffron.'
A few years afterwards he went from Avignon to Paris, and was astonished at the net-work of filthy lanes in the students' quarter. It was a paradise of books, all kept at fair prices by the University's decree; but the traveller declared that, except in 'the world's sink' at Avignon, he had never seen so dirty a place. At Rome he was dismayed to find that all the books were the prey of the foreigner. The English and French merchants were carrying away what had been spared by the Goths andVandals. 'Are you not ashamed,' he cried to his Roman friends, 'are you not ashamed that your avarice should allow these strangers every day to acquire some remnant of your ancient majesty?'
He used to pore over his manuscripts on the most incongruous occasions, like Pliny reading his critical notes at the boar-hunt. 'Whether I am being shaved or having my hair cut,' he wrote, 'and whether I am riding or dining, I either read or get some one to read to me.' Some of his favourite volumes are described in terms of delightful affection. He tells us how Homer and Plato sat side by side on the shelf,—the prince of poets by the prince of philosophers. He only knew the rudiments of Greek, and was forced to read the Iliad in the Latin version. 'But I glory,' he said, 'in the sight of my illustrious guests, and have at least the pleasure of seeing the Greeks in their national costume.' 'Homer,' he adds, 'is dumb, or I am deaf; I am delighted with his looks; and as often as I embrace the silent volume I cry, "Oh illustrious bard, how gladly would I listen to thy song, if only I had not lost my hearing, through the death of one friend and the lamented absence of another!"'
In his treatise on Fortune, Petrarch has left us a study on book-collecting in the form of a dialogue between his natural genius and his critical reason. He argues, as it were, in his own person against the imaginary opponent. A paraphrase will show the nature and the result of the contest.
'Petrarch.I have indeed a great quantity of books.
Critic.That gives me an excellent instance. Some men amass books for self-instruction and others from vanity. Some decorate their rooms with the furniture that was intended to be an ornament of the soul, as if it were like the bronzes and statues of which we were speaking. Some are working for their own vile ends behind their rows of books, and these are the worst of all, because they esteem literature merely as merchandise, and not at its real value; and this new fashionable infliction becomes another engine for the arts of avarice.
Pet.I have a very considerable quantity of books.
Crit.Well! it is a charming, embarrassing kind of luggage, affording an agreeable diversion for the mind.
Pet.I have a great abundance of books.
Crit.Yes, and a great abundance of hard work and a great lack of repose. You have to keep your mind marching in all directions, and to overload your memory. Books have led some to learning, and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest. In the mind, as in the body, indigestion does more harm than hunger; food and books alike must be used according to the constitution, and what is little enough for one is too much for another.
Pet.But I have an immense quantity of books.
Crit.Immense is that which has no measure, and without measure there is nothing convenient or decent in the affairs of men.
Pet.I have an incalculable number of books.
Crit.Have you more than Ptolemy, King of Egypt, accumulated in the library at Alexandria, which were all burned at one time? Perhaps there was an excuse for him in his royal wealth and his desire to benefit posterity. But what are we to say of the private citizens who have surpassed the luxury of kings? Have we not read of Serenus Sammonicus, the master of many languages, who bequeathed 62,000 volumes to the younger Gordian? Truly that was a fine inheritance, enough to sustain many souls or to oppress one to death, as all will agree. If Serenus had done nothing else in his life, and had not read a word in all those volumes, would he not have had enough to do in learning their titles and sizes and numbers and their authors' names? Here you have a science that turns a philosopher into a librarian. This is not feeding the soul with wisdom: it is the crushing it under a weight of riches or torturing it in the waters of Tantalus.
Pet.I have innumerable books.
Crit.Yes, and innumerable errors of ignorant authors and of the copyists who corrupt all that they touch.
Pet.I have a good provision of books.
Crit.What does that matter, if your intellect cannot take them in? Do you remember the Roman Sabinus who plumed himself on the learning of his slaves? Some people think that they must know what is in their own books, and say, when a newsubject is started: 'I have a book about that in my library!' They think that this is quite sufficient, just as if the book were in their heads, and then they raise their eyebrows, and there is an end of the subject.
Pet.I am overflowing with books.
Crit.Why don't you overflow with talent and eloquence? Ah! but these things are not for sale, like books, and if they were I don't suppose there would be many buyers, for books do make a covering for the walls, but those other wares are only clothing for the soul, and are invisible and therefore neglected.
Pet.I have books which help me in my studies.
Crit.Take care that they do not prove a hindrance. Many a general has been beaten by having too many troops. If books came in like recruits one would not turn them away, but would stow them in proper quarters, and use the best of them, taking care not to bring up a force too soon which would be more useful on another occasion.
Pet.I have a great variety of books.
Crit.A variety of paths will often deceive the traveller.
Pet.I have collected a number of fine books.
Crit.To gain glory by means of books you must not only possess them but know them; their lodging must be in your brain and not on the book-shelf.
Pet.I keep a few beautiful books.
Crit.Yes, you keep in irons a few prisoners, who, if they could escape and talk, would have you indictedfor wrongful imprisonment. But now they lie groaning in their cells, and of this they ever complain, that an idle and a greedy man is overflowing with the wealth that might have sustained a multitude of starving scholars.'
Petrarch was in truth a careless custodian of his prisoners. He was too ready to lend a book to a friend, and his generosity on one occasion caused a serious loss to literature. The only known copy of a treatise by Cicero was awaiting transcription in his library; but he allowed it to be carried off by an old scholar in need of assistance: it was pledged in some unknown quarter, and nothing was ever heard again of the precious deposit.
He returned to Avignon in 1337, and made himself a quiet home at Vaucluse. His letters are full of allusions to his little farm, to the poplars in the horse-shoe valley, and the river brimming out from the 'monarch of springs.' In these new lawns of Helicon he made a new home for his books, and tried to forget in their company the tumults that had driven him from Italy. In 1340 he received offers of a laureate's crown from Rome, the capital of the world, and from Paris, 'the birth-place of learning.' 'I start to-day,' he wrote to Colonna, 'to receive my reward over the graves of those who were the pride of ancient Rome, and in the very theatre of their exploits.' The Capitol resounded to such cheers that its walls and 'antique dome' seemed to share in the public joy: the senator placed a chaplet on hisbrow, and old Stephen Colonna added a few words of praise amid the applause of the Roman people.
At Parma, soon afterwards, Petrarch formed another library which he called his 'second Parnassus.' At Padua he busied himself in the education of an adopted son, the young John of Ravenna, who lived to be a celebrated professor, and was nicknamed 'the Trojan Horse,' because he turned out so many excellent Grecians. In a cottage near Milan the poet received a visit from Boccaccio, who was at that time inclined to renounce the world. He offered to give his whole library to Petrarch: he did afterwards send to his host aDanteof his own copying, which is now preserved in the Vatican. The approach of a pestilence led Petrarch to remove his home to Venice: and here he was again visited by Boccaccio, this time in company with Leontio Pilato, a Calabrian Greek trading in books between Italy and Constantinople.
Leontio was the translator of Homer, and expounded his poems from the Chair of Rhetoric at Florence. He was a man of forbidding appearance, and 'more obdurate,' said Petrarch, 'than the rocks that he will encounter in his voyage': 'fearing that I might catch his bad temper, I let him go, and gave him a Terence to amuse him on the way, though I do not know what this melancholy Greek could have in common with that lively African.' Leontio was killed by lightning on his return voyage; and there was much anxiety until it could be ascertained that his literary stock-in-trade had been rescued from thehands of the sailors. It was not till the end of the century that Chrysoloras renewed the knowledge of the classics: but we may regard the austere Leontio as the chief precursor of the crowd of later immigrants, each with a gem, or bronze, or 'a brown Greek manuscript' for sale, and all eager to play their parts in the restoration of learning.
Towards the end of his life Petrarch became tired of carrying his books about. When he broke up the libraries at Parma and Vaucluse he had formed the habit of travelling with bales of manuscripts in a long cavalcade; but he determined afterwards to offer the collection to Venice, on condition that it should be properly housed, and should never be sold or divided. The offer was accepted by the Republic, and the Palazzo Molina was assigned as a home for the poet and his books. Petrarch, however, had other plans for himself. He wished to be near Padua, where he held a canonry; and he accordingly built himself a cottage at Arquà, among the Euganean Hills, about ten miles from the city. A few olive-trees and a little vine-yard sufficed for the wants of his modest household; and there, as he wrote to his brother, broken in body but easy in his mind, he passed his time in reading, and prepared for his end. His only regret was that there was no monastery near in which he might see his beloved Gerard fulfilling his religious duties. He seems to have given up his love for fine books with other worldly vanities. He offers excuses for the plain appearance of a volume of 'St. Augustine'which he was sending as a present. 'One must not,' said he, 'expect perfect manuscripts from scholars who are engaged on better things. A general does not sharpen the soldiers' swords. Apelles did not cut out his own boards, or Polycletus his sheets of ivory; some humble person always prepares the material on which a higher mind is to be engaged. So is it with books: some polish the parchment, and others copy or correct the text; others again do the illumination, to use the common phrase; but a loftier spirit will disdain these menial occupations.' The scholar's books are often of a rough and neglected appearance, for abundance of anything makes the owner 'careless and secure'; it is the invalid who is particular about every breath of air, but the strong man loves the rough breeze. 'As to this book of theConfessions, its first aspect will teach you all about it. Quite new, quite unadorned, untouched by the corrector's fangs, it comes out of my young servant's hands. You will notice some defects in spelling, but no gross mistakes. In a word, you will perhaps find things in it which will exercise but not disturb your understanding. Read it then, and ponder upon it. This book, which would enflame a heart of ice, must set your ardent soul on fire.'
On a summer night of the year 1374, Petrarch died peacefully at Arquà, alone in his library. His few remaining books were sold, and some of them may still be seen in Rome and Paris. Those which he had given to Venice suffered a strange reverse offortune. How long the gift remained in the Palazzo Molina we cannot tell. We conjecture that it was discarded in the next century, before Bessarion presented his Greek books to the senate, and became the actual founder of the library of St. Mark. The antiquary Tomasini found Petrarch's books cast aside in a dark room behind the Horses of Lysippus. Some had crumbled into powder, and others had been glued into shapeless masses by the damp. The survivors were placed in the Libraria Vecchia, and are now in the Ducal Palace; but it was long before they were permitted to enter the building that sheltered the gift of Bessarion.
The University Library at Oxford was a development of Richard de Bury's foundation. The monks of Durham had founded a hall, now represented by Trinity College, in which Richard had always taken a fatherly interest. He provided the ordinary texts and commentaries for the students, and was extremely anxious that they should be instructed in Greek and in the languages of the East. A knowledge of Arabic, he thought, was as necessary for the study of astronomy as a familiarity with Hebrew was requisite for the understanding of the Scriptures. The Friars had bought a good supply of Hebrew books when the Jews were expelled from England; Richard not only increased the available store, but supplied the means of using it. 'We have provided,' he said, 'a grammar in Greek and Hebrew for the scholars, with all the proper aids to instruct them in reading and writing those languages.' He formed the ambitious design of providing assistance to the whole University out of the books presented to the hall. The rules which he drew up were not unlike those already in use at the Sorbonne. Five students were chosen as wardens,of whom any three might be a quorum for lending the manuscripts. Any book, of which they possessed a duplicate, might be lent out on proper security: but copying was not allowed, and no volume was on any account to be carried beyond the suburbs. A yearly account was to be taken of the books in store, and of the current securities; and if any profit should come to the wardens' hands it was to be applied to the maintenance of the library.
When the Bishop died some of his books went back to Durham; but the monks were generous towards the hall, and on several occasions sent fresh supplies to Oxford. It may also be observed that some of his bestmss.were returned to the Abbey of St. Alban's. He had bought about thirty volumes from a former abbot for fifty pounds weight of silver; but the monks had continually protested against a transaction which they believed to be illegal, and on Richard's death some of the books were given back, and others were purchased by Abbot Wentmore from his executors.
De Bury's generous care for learning was imitated in several quarters. A few years after his death the Lady Elizabeth de Burgh made a bequest of a small but very costly library to her College of Clare Hall at Cambridge. Guy Earl of Warwick about the same time gave a collection of illuminated romances to the monks of Bordesley. John de Newton in the next generation divided his collection of classics, histories, and service-books, between St. Peter's College at Cambridge and the Minster at York, where he had actedfor some years as treasurer. The lending-library at Durham Hall was the only provision for the public, with the exception of a few volumes kept in the 'chest with four keys' at St. Mary's. Thomas Cobham, Bishop of Worcester, had long been anxious to show his filial love for the University: as early as the year 1320 he had begun to prepare a room for a library 'over the old congregation-house in the north churchyard of St. Mary's'; and, though the work was left incomplete, he gave all his books by will to be placed at the disposal of the whole body of scholars. Owing to disputes that arose between the University and the College to which Cobham had belonged, the gift did not take effect until 1367. The University Library was established in the upper room, which was used as a Convocation House in later times; it is said not to have been completely furnished until the year 1409, more than eighty years after the date of the Bishop's benefaction. According to the first statute for the regulation of Cobham's Library, the best of the books were to be sold so as to raise a sum of £40, which according to the current rate of interest would produce a yearly income of £3 for the librarian; the other books, together with those from the University Chest, were to be chained to the desks for the general use of the students. It was soon found necessary to exclude the 'noisy rabble': and permission to work in the library was restricted to graduates of eight years' standing. Richard de Bury had warned the world in his chapter upon the handlingof books, how hardly could a raw youth be made to take care of a manuscript; the student, according to the great bibliophile, would treat a book as roughly as if it were a pair of shoes, would stick in straws to keep his place, or stuff it with violets and rose-leaves, and would very likely eat fruit or cheese over one page and set a cup of ale on the other. An impudent boy would scribble across the text, the copyist would try his pen on a blank space, a scullion would turn the pages with unwashed hands, or a thief might cut out the fly-leaves and margins to use in writing his letters; 'and all these various negligences,' he adds, 'are wonderfully injurious to books.'
A generous benefactor gave a copy of De Lyra's 'Commentaries,' which was set upon a desk in St. Mary's Chancel for reference. A large gift of books came from Richard Courteney, the Chancellor of the University; and as a mark of gratitude he was allowed free access to the library during the rest of his life. Among the other benefactors whose good deeds are still commemorated we find King Henryiv., who helped to complete the library, his successor Henryv., who contributed to its endowment as Prince of Wales, and his brothers John Duke of Bedford and Humphrey Duke of Gloucester; and the roll of a later date includes the names of Edmund Earl of March, Philip Repington Bishop of Lincoln, and the munificent Archbishop Arundel.
The good Duke Humphrey has been called 'the first founder of the University Library.' We knowfrom the records of that time that his gifts were acknowledged to be 'an almost unspeakable blessing.' He sent in all about three hundred volumes during his life, which were placed in the chests of Cobham's Library as they arrived, to be transferred to the new Divinity Schools as soon as room could be made for the whole collection. He had intended to bequeath as many more by way of an additional endowment, but died intestate: and there was a considerable delay before the University could procure the fulfilment of his charitable design. When the books at last arrived 'the general joy knew no bounds'; and the title of 'Duke Humphrey's Library' was gratefully given to the whole assemblage of books which from several different quarters had come into the University's possession.
The catalogue shows that the Duke's store had consisted mainly of the writings of the Fathers and Arabian works on science: there were a few classics, including a Quintilian, and Aristotle and Plato in Latin: the works of Capgrave and Higden were the only English chronicles; but the Duke was a devotee of the Italian learning, and his gifts to Oxford included more than one copy of theDivina Commedia, three separate copies ofBoccaccio, and no less than seven ofPetrarch.
The fate of the libraries founded by De Bury and Duke Humphrey of Gloucester was to perish at the hands of the mob. Bishop Bale has told the sad story of the destruction of the monastic libraries.The books were used for tailors' measures, for scouring candlesticks and cleaning boots; 'some they sold to the grocers and soap-sellers'; some they sent across the seas to the book-binders, 'whole ships-full, to the wondering of foreign nations': he knew a merchant who bought 'two noble libraries' for 40s., and got thereby a store of grey paper for his parcels which lasted him for twenty years. The same thing happened at Oxford. The quadrangle of one College was entirely covered 'with a thick bed of torn books and manuscripts.' The rioters in the Protector Somerset's time broke into the 'Aungerville Library,' as De Bury's collection was called, and burnt all the books. Some of De Bury's books had been removed into Duke Humphrey's Library, and met the same fate at the Schools, with almost every other volume that the University possessed. So complete was the destruction that in 1555 an order was made to sell the desks and book-shelves, as if it were finally admitted that Oxford would never have a library again.
Some few of the Duke's books escaped the general destruction. Of the half-dozen specimens in the British Museum three are known by the ancient catalogues to have been comprised in his gifts to the University. Two more remain at Oxford in the libraries of Oriel and Corpus Christi. We learn from Mr. Macray that only three out of the whole number of hismss.are now to be found in the Bodleian. One of them contains the Duke's signature: another is of high interest as being a translation out ofAristotleby Leonardo Aretino, with an original dedication to the Duke. The third is a magnificent volume ofValerius Maximusprepared, as we know from the monastic annals, under the personal supervision of Abbot Whethamstede, the 'passionate bibliomaniac' of St. Alban's. It contains inscriptions, says Mr. Macray, recording its gift for the use of the scholars, with anathemas upon all who should injure it. 'If any one steals this book,' says the Abbot, 'may he come to the gallows or the rope of Judas.'
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD PRAYING BEFORE ST. GEORGE.
THE DUKE OF BEDFORD PRAYING BEFORE ST. GEORGE.
(From the "Bedford Missal.")
Many of the Duke of Gloucester's books had come to him from the library of the French Kings at the Louvre, which had been purchased and dispersed by John, Duke of Bedford. The Duke himself was in the habit of ordering magnificently illuminated books of devotion, which he gave as presents to his friends. The famous 'Bedford Missal' (really a Book of Hours) was offered by the Duchess in his name to Henryvi.; and Mr. Quaritch possesses another Book of Hours, which the Duke presented to Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, as a wedding gift. The House of Valois was always friendly to literature. King John, who fought at Creçy, began a small collection: he had the story of the Crusades, a tract on the game of chess, and a book containing a French version ofLivy, which seems to have belonged afterwards to Duke Humphrey, and to have found its way later into the Abbey of St. Geneviève. His son Charles le Sage was the owner of about 900 volumes, which he kept in his castle at the Louvre.The first librarian was Gilles Malet, who prepared a catalogue in 1373, which is still in existence. Another was compiled a few years afterwards by Antoine des Essars, and a third was made for Bedford when he purchased about 850 volumes out of the collection in the year 1423. These lists were so carefully executed that we can form a very clear idea of the library itself and the books in their gay bindings on the shelves. We are told that the King was so devoted to his 'Belle Assemblée,' as Christina of Pisa calls it, that not only authors and booksellers, but the princes and nobles at the court, all vied in making offerings of finely illuminated manuscripts.
They were arranged in the three rooms of the Library Tower. The wainscots were of Irish yew, and the ceilings of cypress. The windows were filled with painted glass, and the rooms were lit at night with thirty chandeliers and a great silver lamp. On entering the lowest room the visitor saw a row of book-cases low enough to be used as desks or tables. A few musical instruments lay about; one of the old lists tells us of a lute, and guitars inlaid with ivory and enamel, and 'an old rebec' much out of repair. There were 269 volumes in the book-cases. We will only mention a few of the most remarkable. There was Queen Blanche's Bible in red morocco, and another in white boards, Thomas Waley's rhymes from Ovid with splendid miniatures, and Richard de Furnival'sBestiaire d'Amour. One life of St. Louisstood in a 'chemise blanche,' and another in cloth of gold. St. Gregory and Sir John Mandeville were clothed in indigo velvet. John of Salisbury had a silk coat and long girdle, and most of the Arabians were in tawny silk ornamented with white roses and wreaths of foliage. Some bindings are noticed as being in fine condition, and others as being shabby or faded. The clasps are minutely described. They would catch a visitor's eye as the books lay flat on the shelves: and we suppose that the librarian intended to show the best way of knowing the books apart rather than to dwell on their external attractions. The Oxford fashion was to catalogue according to the last word on the first leaf, or the first word over the page; but it was also a common custom to distinguish important volumes by such names asThe Red Book of the Exchequer, orThe Black Book of Carnarvon.
We need not proceed to describe the other rooms. On the first floor there were 260 books, consisting for the most part of romances with miniature illuminations. One of these was theDestruction de Thèbes, which at one time belonged to the Duc de la Vallière, and is now in the National Library at Paris. The upper floor contained nearly six hundred volumes mostly concerned with astronomy and natural science.
It appears from the memoranda in the lists that there had been a habit of lending books to public institutions and to members of the royal family fromthe time when the library was first established; and it is estimated that about two hundred of the books must have been saved in this way to form the beginning of a new library in the Louvre, which, after the expulsion of the English, began to attain some importance in the reign of Louisxi.
The study of the classics had languished for a time after the deaths of Petrarch and Boccaccio. It revived again upon the coming of Chrysoloras, who is said to have lighted in Italy 'a new and perpetual flame.' Poggio Bracciolini was one of his first pupils; and he became so distinguished in literature that the earlier part of the fifteenth century is known as the age of Poggio. Leonardo Aretino describes the enthusiasm with which the Italians made acquaintance with the ancient learning. 'I gave myself up to Chrysoloras,' he writes, 'and my passion for knowledge was so strong that the daily tasks became the material of my nightly dreams.' He told Cosmo de' Médici, when translating Plato's Dialogues, that they alone seemed to be infused with real life, while all other books passed by like fleeting and shadowy things.
We are chiefly concerned with Poggio as the discoverer of long-lost treasures. He saved Quintilian and many other classics from complete extinction. 'Some of them,' said his friend Barbaro, 'were already dead to the world, and some after a long exile you have restored to their rights as citizens.' As a famous stock of pears had been named after anAppius or Claudius, so it was said that these new fruits of literature ought certainly to be named after Poggio.
The sole remaining copy of an ancient work upon aqueducts was discovered by him in the old library at Monte Cassino, which had survived the assaults of Lombards and Saracens, but in that later age seemed likely to perish by neglect. We have the record of an earlier visit by Boccaccio, in which the carelessness of its guardians was revealed. The visitor, we are told, asked very deferentially if he might see the library. 'It is open, and you can go up,' said a monk, pointing to the ladder that led to an open loft. The traveller describes the filthy and doorless chamber, the grass growing on the window-sills, and the books and benches white with dust. He took down book after book, and they all seemed to be ancient and valuable; but from some of them whole sheets had been taken out, and in others the margins of the vellum had been cut off. All in tears at this miserable sight, Boccaccio went down the ladder, and asked a monk in the cloister how those precious volumes had come to such a pass; and the monk told him that the brothers who wanted a few pence would take out a quire of leaves to make a little psalter for sale, and used to cut off the margins to make 'briefs,' which they sold to the women.
Poggio himself has described his discovery at the Abbey of St. Gall. 'By good fortune,' he says, 'we were at Constance without anything to do, and itoccurred to us to go to the monastery about twenty miles off to see the place where the Quintilian was shut up.' The Abbey had been founded by the Irish missionaries who destroyed the idols of Suabia, when according to the ancient legend the mountain-demon vainly called on the spirit of the lake to join in resisting the foe. Its library had been celebrated in the ninth century, when the Hungarian terror fell upon Europe, and the barbarian armies in one and the same day 'laid in ashes the monastery of St. Gall and the city of Bremen on the shores of the Northern ocean'; but the books had been fortunately removed to the Abbey of Reichenau on an island in the Rhine. 'We went to the place,' said Poggio, 'to amuse ourselves and to look at the books. Among them we found the Quintilian safe and sound, but all coated with dust. The books were by no means housed as they deserved, but were all in a dark and noisome place at the foot of a tower, into which one would not cast a criminal condemned to death.' He describes the finding of several other raremss., and says: 'I have copied them all out in great haste, and have sent them to Florence.'
In 1418 he visited England in the train of Cardinal Beaufort. He said that he was unable to procure any transcripts, though he visited some of the principal libraries, and must have seen that the collection at the Grey Friars at least was 'well stocked with books.' He was more successful on the Continent, where he brought theHistoryof Ammianus outof a German prison into the free air of the republic of letters. He gave the original to Cardinal Colonna, and wrote to Aretino about transcripts: 'Niccolo has copied it on paper for Cosmo de' Médici: you must write to Carlo Aretino for another copy, or he might lend you the original, because if the scribe should be an ignoramus you might get a fable instead of a history.'
Among the pupils of Chrysoloras, Guarini of Verona was esteemed the keenest philologist, and John Aurispa as having the most extended knowledge of the classics. Aurispa, says Hallam, came rather late from Sicily, but his labours were not less profitable than those of his predecessors; in the year 1423 he brought back from Greece considerably more than two hundredmss.of authors hardly known in Italy; and the list includes books of Plato, of Pindar, and of Strabo, of which all knowledge had been lost in the West. Aurispa lectured for many years at Bologna and Florence, and ended his days at the literary Court of Ferrara. Philelpho was one of the most famous of the scholars who returned 'laden with manuscripts' from Greece. To recover a lost poem or oration was to go far on the road to fortune, and a very moderate acquaintance with the text was expected from the hero of the fortunate adventure. When he lectured on his new discoveries at Florence, where he had established himself in spite of the Médici, Philelpho according to his own account was treated with such deference on all sides that hewas overwhelmed with bashfulness; 'All the citizens are turning towards me, and all the ladies and the nobles exalt my name to the skies.' He was the bitter enemy of Poggio, and of all who supported the reigning family of Florence. Poggio had the art of making enemies, though he was a courtier by profession and had been secretary to eight Popes. He raged against Philelpho in a flood of scurrilous pamphlets; Valla, the great Latin scholar, was violently attacked for a mere word of criticism, and Niccolo Perotti, the grammarian, paid severely for supporting his friend. Poggio was always in extremes. His eulogies in praise of Lorenzo de' Médici, and Niccolo Niccoli of Florence are perfect in grace and dignity; his invectives were as scurrilous as anything recorded in the annals of literature.
Two generous benefactors preceded 'the father of his country' in providing libraries for Florence. Niccolo Niccoli by common consent was the great Mæcenas of his age; his passion for books was boundless, and he had gathered the best collection that had been seen in Italy for many generations. The public was free to inspect his treasures, and any citizen might either read or transcribe as he pleased; 'In one word,' wrote Poggio, 'I say that he was the wisest and the most benevolent of mankind.' By his will he appointed sixteen trustees, among whom was Cosmo de' Médici, to take charge of his books for the State. Some legal difficulty arose after his death, but Cosmo undertook to pay all liabilities if themanagement of the library were left to his sole discretion; and the gift of the 'Florentine Socrates' was eventually added to the books which Cosmo had purchased in Italy or had acquired in his Levantine commerce.
Another citizen of Florence had rivalled the generosity of Niccoli. The Chancellor Coluccio Salutati was revered by his countrymen for the majestic flow of his prose and verse. It is true that Tiraboschi considered him to be 'as much like Virgil or Cicero as a monkey resembles a man.' Salutati showed his gratitude to Florence by endowing the city with his splendid library. But in this case also there were difficulties, and again the way was made smooth by the prompt munificence of the Médici. Cosmo himself bought up Greek books in the Levant, and was fortunate in securing some of the best specimens of Byzantine art. His brother Lorenzo, his son Pietro, and Lorenzo the Magnificent in the next generation, all laboured in their turn to adorn the Medicean collection. Politian the poet, and Mirandula, the Phœnix of his age, were the messengers whom the great Lorenzo sent out to gather the spoil; and he only prayed, he said, that they might find such a store of good books that he would be obliged to pawn his furniture to pay for them.
On the flight of the reigning family the 'Médici books' were bought by the Dominicans at St. Mark's; and they rested for some years in Savonarola's home,stored in the gallery which holds the great choir-books illuminated by Frà Angelico and his companions. In the year 1508 the monks were in pecuniary distress, and were forced to sell the books to Leox., then Cardinal de' Médici. He took them to Rome to ensure their safety, but was always careful to keep them apart from the official assemblage in the Vatican; it is certain that he would have restored them to Florence, if he had lived a shorttimelonger. The patriotic design was carried out by Clementvii., another member of that book-loving family, and their hereditary treasures at last found a permanent home in the gallery designed by Michelangelo.
The 'Médici books' were catalogued by a humble bell-ringer, who lived to be a chief figure in the literary world. Thomas of Sarzana performed the task so well that his system became a model for librarians. While travelling in attendance on a Legate, the future Pope could never refrain from expensive purchases; to own books, we are told, was his ambition, 'his pride, his pleasure, passion, and avarice'; and he was only saved from ruin by the constant help of his friends. When he succeeded to the tiara as Pope Nicholasv., his influence was felt through Christendom as a new literary force. He encouraged research at home, and gathered the records of antiquity from the ruined cities of the East, and 'the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain.' His labours resulted in the restoration ofthe Vatican Library with an endowment of five thousand volumes; and he found time to complete the galleries for their reception, though he could never hope to finish the rest of the palace. A great part of his work was destroyed in 1527 by the rabble that 'followed the Bourbon' to the sack of Rome; but his institution survived the temporary disaster, and its losses were repaired by the energy of Sixtusv.
Pope Nicholas had no sympathy with the niggardly spirit that would have kept the 'barbarians' in darkness. He opened his Greek treasure-house to the inspection of the whole western world. Looking back to the crowd round his chair at the Lateran or in his house near Sta.Maria Maggiore, we recognise a number of familiar figures. Perotti is translating Polybius, and Aurispa explaining the Golden Verses; Guarini enlarges the world's boundaries by publishing the geography of Strabo. An old tract upon the Pope's munificence shows how the Eastern Fathers were restored to a place of honour. Basil and Cyril were translated, and the Pope obtained theCommentary upon St. Matthew, of which Erasmus made excellent use in his Paraphrase: it was the book of which Aquinas wrote that he would rather have a copy than be master of the city of Paris. The Pope desired very strongly to read Homer in Latin verse, and had procured a translation of the first book of the Iliad. Hearing that Philelpho had arrived in Rome, he hoped that the work might be finished by a master-hand, and to get a version ofthe whole Iliad and Odyssey he gave a large retaining fee, a palazzo, and a farm in the Campagna, and made a deposit of ten thousand pieces of gold to be paid on the completion of the contract.
Joseph Scaliger, the supreme judge in his day of all that related to books, said that of all these men of the Italian renaissance he only envied three. One of course was Pico of Mirandula, a man of marvellous powers, who rose as a mere youth to the highest place as a philosopher and linguist. The next was Politian, equally renowned for hard scholarship and for the sweetness and charm of his voluminous poems. The third was the Greek refugee, Theodore of Gaza, so warmly praised by Erasmus for his versatile talent; no man, it was said, was so skilled in the double task of turning Greek books into Latin, and rendering Latin into Greek.
We should feel inclined to bracket another name with those of the famous trio. George of Trebisond was a faithful expounder of the classics, the discoverer of many a lost treasure, and the author of a whole library of criticism. His life and labours were denounced in the once celebratedBook of the Georges. He was more than a lover of Aristotle, said his enemies: he was the enemy of the divine Plato, an apostate among the Greeks, who had even dared to oppose their patron Bessarion. The Cardinal Bessarion was complimented as 'the most Latin of the Greeks'; he might have ruled as Pope in Rome, some said, if it had not been forPerotti refusing to disturb him in the library. But George of Trebisond was vilified after Poggio's fashion, and called 'brute' and 'heretic,' and 'more Turkish than the filthiest Turk,' with a hailstorm of still harder epithets. Yet he was certainly a very accurate scholar; and he showed a proper manly spirit when he boxed Poggio's ears in the Theatre of Pompey for reminding him of the cleverness expected from 'a starving Greek.' His life, one is glad to think, had a very peaceful end. The old man had a house at Rome in the Piazza Minerva: his tombstone, much defaced, is before the curtain as one enters the Church of Sta.Maria. His son Andrea used to help him in his work, and launched a pamphlet now and again at Theodore of Gaza. The brilliant scholar fell into a second childhood, and might be seen muttering to himself as he rambled with cloak and long staff through the streets of Rome. The grand-daughter who took charge of him married Madalena, a fashionable poet; and Pope Leox.delighted in hearing their anecdotes about old times, when George and Theodore fought their paper-wars, and wielded their pens in the battle of the books.
Before leaving the subject of the libraries in the two great capitals, we ought to bestow a word or two upon those splendidly endowed institutions by which a few Florentine book-collectors have kept up the literary fame of their city, without pretending to emulate the splendour of the Médici, or the wealthof the Vatican, or the curious antiquities of St. Mark. We desire especially to say something in remembrance of the 'Riccardiana' which, from its foundation in the sixteenth century, has been famous for the value of its historical manuscripts. Among these are the journals of Frà Oderigo, an early traveller in the East, a treatise in Galileo's own writing, and a defence of Savonarola's policy in the handwriting of Pico of Mirandula. We may see a copy of Marshal Strozzi's will, discussing his plans of suicide, a history of the city composed and written out by Machiavelli, and a large and interesting series of Poggio's literary correspondence. The most celebrated of the librarians was Giovanni Lami, who in the last century kept up with such spirit a somewhat dangerous controversy with the Jesuits; but his monument at Santa Croce may have been owed less to his triumphs in argument than to his passionate devotion to books. His life was spent among them, and he died with a manuscript in his arms; and his memory is still preserved in Florence by the Greek collection with which he endowed the University.
The Abbé Marucelli left his name to another Florentine library. He was a philanthropist as well as a bibliophile; and he gave the huge assemblage of books which he had gathered at Rome to the use of the students in the home of his boyhood. He wrote much, but was almost too modest to publish or preserve his works. Perhaps the most interesting portion of his gift consisted of a series of about ahundred large folios in which, like the Patriarch Photius, he had written in the form of notes the results of the reading of a life-time.
ANTONIO MAGLIABECCHI.
ANTONIO MAGLIABECCHI.
The Magliabecchian Library maintains the remembrance of a portent in literature. Antonio Magliabecchi, the jeweller's shop-boy, became renowned throughout the world for his abnormal knowledge of books. He never at any time left Florence; but he read every catalogue that was issued, and was in correspondence with all the collectors and librarians of Europe. He was blessed with a prodigious memory, and knew all the contents of a book by 'hunting it with his finger,' or once turning over the pages. He was believed, moreover, to know the habitat of all the rare books in the world; and according to the well-known anecdote he replied to the Grand Duke, who asked for a particular volume: 'The only copy of this work is at Constantinople, in the Sultan's library, the seventh volume in the second book-case, on the right as you go in.' He has been despised as 'a man who lived on titles and indexes, and whose very pillow was a folio.' Dibdin declared that Magliabecchi's existence was confined to 'the parade and pacing of a library'; but, as a matter of fact, the old bibliomaniac lived in a kind of cave made of piles and masses of books, with hardly any room for his cooking or for the wooden cradle lined with pamphlets which he slung between his shelves for a bed. He died in 1714, in his eighty-second year, dirty, ragged, and as happy as a king; andcertainly not less than eight thick volumes of sonnets and epigrams appeared at once in his praise. He left about 30,000 volumes of his own collecting, which he gave to the city upon condition that they should be always free to the public. The library that bears his name contains more than ten times that number. It includes about 60,000 printed books and 2000mss.that once belonged to the Grand Dukes, and were kept in their Palatine Galleries. There have been many later additions; but the whole mass is now dedicated to the worthiest of its former possessors, and remains as a perpetual monument of the most learned and most eccentric of bookmen.
The memory of many great book-collectors has been preserved in the libraries established from ancient times in several of the Italian cities. There are two at Padua, of which the University Library may claim to have had the longer existence: but the 'Capitolina' can claim Petrarch as one of its founders, and may boast of the books on antiquities gathered by Pignoria, the learned commentator upon the remains of Rome and the historian of his native city of Padua. It may be worth noticing that there were several smaller collections in the churches, due to the industry of bookmen whose names have been forgotten. We hear of the books of St. Anthony and of Santa Giustina: and as to the library in the Church of St. John the tradition long prevailed that Sixtus of Sienna, a noted hunter after rare books, saw on its shelves a copy of theEpistle to the Laodiceans, and read it, and made copious extracts.
Mantua received many of the spoils of Rome from Ludovico Gonzaga, which were lost in the later wars: the most famous acquisition was Bembo's tablet of hieroglyphics, which was interpreted by the patientskill of Lorenzo Pignoria. At Turin the King's Library contains some of the papers and drawings of Ligorio, who helped in the building of St. Peter's: but most of his books were taken to Ferrara, where he held an official appointment as antiquary. The University Library contains the collections of the Dukes of Savoy, including a quantity of Orientalmss., and some of the precious volumes illuminated by the monks of Bobbio. The Père Jacob in his treatise upon famous libraries had some personal anecdote to record about the bookmen of each place that he visited. At Naples he saw the collection of the works of Pontanus, presented to the Dominicans by his daughter Eugenia; at Bologna he found a long roll of the Pentateuch, 'written by Esdras'; and at Ferrara he described the tomb of Cœlius, who was buried among his books, at his own desire, like a miser in the midst of his riches.
Ferrara derived a special fame from the munificence of the House of Este and the memory of Olympia Morata. A long line of illustrious princes had built up 'an Athens in the midst of Bœotia.' Ariosto sang the praises of the literary Court, and Tasso's misfortunes were due to his eagerness in accepting its pleasures. The library of Lilio Giraldi was a meeting-place for the scholars of Italy, and it continued to be the pride of Ferrara when it passed to Cinthio Giraldi the poet. Renée of France, after the death of her husband, Duke Hercules, made Ferrara a city of refuge for Calvin and Marot andthe fugitive Reformers from Germany. Olympia Morata, the daughter of a Protestant citizen, was chosen as the companion and instructress of the Princess Anna. They passed a quiet life among their books until a time of persecution arrived, when Olympia found a hope of safety in marrying Andrew Grundler of Schweinfurt. Her love for books appears in the letters written towards the close of her life. In 1554 she tells Curio of the storming of Schweinfurt, where she lost her library: 'when I entered Heidelberg barefoot, with my hair down, and in a ragged borrowed gown, I looked like the Queen of the Beggars.' 'I hope,' she said, 'that with the other books you will send me the Commentary on Jeremiah.' Her friend answers that Homer and Sophocles are on their way: 'and you shall have Jeremiah too, that you may lament with him the misfortunes of your husband's country.' Olympia replied from her death-bed, returning her warmest thanks for the books. 'Farewell, excellent Curio, and do not distress yourself when your hear of my death. I send you such of my poems as I have been able to write out since the storming of Schweinfurt; all my other writings have perished; I hope that you will be my Aristarchus and will polish the poems; and now again, Farewell.'
The Ducal Library of Ferrara was transferred to Modena when the Duchy was added to the States of the Church. The collection at Modena is still famous for its illuminatedmss., and for the care bestowed byMuratori and Tiraboschi in their selection of printed books. The Court of Naples also might boast of some illustrious bibliophiles. Queen Joanna possessed one of those smallLivres d'Heuresof 'microscopic refinement' which Mr. Middleton has classed among the 'greatest marvels of human skill.' René of Anjou, her unfortunate successor, found a solace for exile in his books, and showed in a Burgundian prison that he could paint a vellum as cleverly as a monkish scribe. Alfonso, the next King of Naples, was a collector in the strictest sense of the term. He would go off to Florence for bargains, and would even undertake a commission for a book-loving subject. Antonio Becatelli corresponded on these matters with his royal master. 'I have the message from Florence that you know of a fine Livy at the price of 125 crowns: I pray your Majesty to buy it for me and to send it here, and I will get the money together in the meantime. But I should like your Majesty's opinion on the point, whether Poggio or myself has chosen the better part. He has sold Livy, the king of books, written out by his own hand, to buy an estate near Florence; but I, to get my Livy, have put up all my property for sale by auction.' The books collected by Alfonso were at the end of the century carried off by Charlesviii., and were divided between the Royal Library at Fontainebleau and the separate collection of Anne of Brittany.
A romantic interest has always attached to thelibrary at Urbino. The best scholars in Europe used to assemble at the palace, where Duke Federigo made such a gathering of books 'as had not been seen for a thousand years,' in the hall where Emilia and the pale Duke Guidubaldo led the pleasant debates described in the 'Cortegiano.' Federigo, the most successful general in the Italian wars, had built a palace of delight in his rude Urbino, in which he hoped to set a copy of every book in the world. His book-room was adorned with ideal portraits by Piero della Francesca and Melozzo: it was very large and lofty, 'with windows set high against the Northern sky.' The catalogue of the books is still preserved in the Vatican. It shows the names of all the classics, the Fathers, and the mediæval schoolmen, many works upon Art, and almost all the Greek and Hebrew works that were known to exist. Among the more modern writers we find those whose works we have discussed, Petrarch and his friends, Guarini and Perotti, and Valla with his enemy Poggio; among the others we notice Alexander ab Alexandro, a most learned antiquarian from Naples, of whom Erasmus once said: 'He seems to have known everybody, but nobody knows who he is.' The chief treasure of the place was a Bible, illuminated in 1478 by a Florentine artist, which the Duke caused to be bound 'in gold brocade most richly adorned with silver.' 'Shortly before he went to the siege of Ferrara,' says his librarian, 'I compared his catalogue with those that he had procured from other places,such as the lists from the Vatican, Florence, Venice, and Pavia, down to the University of Oxford in England, and I found that all except his own were deficient or contained duplicate volumes.' His son, Duke Guidubaldo, was a celebrated Greek scholar; and the eulogies of Bembo and Castiglione on his Duchess, Elizabeth Gonzaga, attest the literary distinction of her Court. Francesco, the third Duke, lost his dominions to Leox.; but he showed his good taste in stipulating that the books were to be reserved as his personal effects. Some of the early-printed books are still in the palace at Urbino; others are at Castel Durante, or in the College of the Sapienza at Rome; and the splendidmss.form one of the principal attractions of the Vatican.
Among private collectors the name of Cardinal Domenico Capranica should be commemorated. Though continually engaged in war and diplomacy, he found time to surround himself with books. On his death in 1458 he gave his palace and library towards the endowment of a new College at Rome, and his plans were carried out with some alterations by his brother Angelo Capranica. Two Greeks of the imperial House of Lascaris took important places in the history of the Italian renaissance. Constantine had found a refuge at Milan after the conquest of his country, and here he became tutor to the Lady Hippolyta Sforza, and published a grammar which was the first book printed in Greek. He afterwards lectured at Messina, where he formed a large collection ofmss., which he bequeathed to the citizens. In a later age it was taken to Spain by Philipii.and placed on the shelves of the Escorial. John Lascaris belonged to a younger generation. He was protected by Leox., and may be regarded as the true founder of the Greek College at Rome. In matters of literature he was the ambassador of Lorenzo de' Médici, and was twice sent to the Turkish Court in search of books. After the expulsion of the Médici, John Lascaris went to reside in Paris, where he gave lectures on poetry, and employed himself in securing Greek lecturers for a new College; and he was also engaged to help Budæus, who had been his pupil, in arranging the books at Fontainebleau.
Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, had the largest library in Europe. It was credited with containing the impossible number of 50,000 volumes; its destruction during the Turkish wars is allowed to have been one of the chief misfortunes of literature. Matthias began his long reign of forty-two years in 1458, and during all that time he was adding to his collections at Buda. Some have derided Corvinus as a mere gormandiser with an appetite for all kinds of books. Some have blamed him for risking such inestimable treasures upon a dangerous frontier. It is admitted that he worked hard to dispel the thick darkness that surrounded the Hungarian people. He kept thirty scribes continually employed at Buda, besides four permitted to work at Florence by thecourtesy of Lorenzo de' Médici. The whole library may be regarded as in some sense a Florentine colony. Fontius, the king's chief agent in the Levant, had been a well-known author in Florence: his Commentary upon Persius, once presented to Corvinus himself, is now in the library at Wolfenbüttel. Attavante, the pupil of Frà Angelico, was employed to illuminate themss. A good specimen of his work is the Breviary of St. Jerome at Paris, which came out of the palace at Buda and was acquired by the nation from the Duc de la Vallière. A traveller named Brassicanus visited Hungary in the reign of King Louis. He was enraptured with the grand palace by the river, the tall library buildings and their stately porticoes. He passes the galleries under review, and tells us of the huge gold and silver globes, the instruments of science on the walls, and an innumerable crowd of well-favoured and well-clad books. He felt, he assures us, as if he were in 'Jupiter's bosom,' looking down upon that 'heavenly scene.' He wished that he had brought away some picture or minute record; but we have his account of the books which he handled, the Greek orations that are now lost for ever, the history of Salvian saved by the King's good nature in presenting the book to his admiring visitor. The palace and library were destroyed when Buda was taken by the Turks. The Pasha in command refused an enormous sum subscribed for the rescue of the books. The janissaries tore off the metal coverings from the rarermss., and tossed the others aside; the only known copy of Heliodorus, from which all our editions of the tale of Chariclea are derived, was found in an open gutter. Some books were burned and others hacked and maimed, or trodden under foot; many were carried away into the neighbouring villages. About four hundred were piled up in a deserted tower, and were protected against all intrusion by the seal of the Grand Vizier. There were adventures still in store for the captives. Through the scattered villages Dr. Sambucus went up and down, recovering the strayed Corvinian books for the Emperor Rodolph, a strange Quixotic figure always riding alone, with swinging saddle-bags, and a great mastiff running on either side. Many a disappointed wayfarer was turned away from the lonely tower. At last Busbec the great traveller, because he was an ambassador from the Emperor, was allowed to enter a kind of charnel-house, and to see what had been the lovely gaily-painted vellums lying squalidly piled in heaps. To see them was a high favour; the visitor was not permitted to touch the remains; and it was not until 1686 that about forty of the maltreated volumes were rescued by force of arms and set in a a place of safety among the Emperor's books at Vienna.
It has always been a favourite exercise to track the Corvinianmss.into their scattered hiding-places. Some are in the Vatican, others at Ferrara, and some in their birth-place at Florence. It is said that someof them have never left their home in Hungary. Venice possesses a 'History of the House of Corvinus,' and Jena has a work by Guarini with the King's insignia 'most delicately painted on the title.' The portraits of the King and Queen are on one of the examples secured by Augustus of Brunswick for his library at Wolfenbüttel. Mary of Austria, the widow of King Louis, presented two of the Corvinian books to theLibrairie de Bourgogneat Brussels; one was the Missal, full of Attavante's work, on which the Sovereigns of Brabant were sworn; the other was the 'Golden Gospels,' long the pride of the Escorial, but now restored to Belgium.
Other scattered volumes from the library of Corvinus have been traced to various cities in France and Germany. There has been much controversy on the question whether any of them are to be found in England. Some think that examples might be traced among the Arundelmss.in the British Museum. Thomas, Earl of Arundel, it is known, went on a book-hunting expedition to Heidelberg, where he bought some of the remnants of the Palatine collection. Passing on to Nuremberg he obtained about a hundredmss.that had belonged to Pirckheimer, the first great German bibliophile; and these, according to some authorities, came out of the treasure-house at Buda. The Duke of Norfolk was persuaded by John Evelyn to place them in the Gresham Library, under the care of the Royal Society, and they afterwards became the property of the nation.Oldys the antiquary distinctly stated that these 'were the remnants of the King of Hungary'; 'they afterwards fell into the hands of Bilibald Pirckheimer.' The Senator of Nuremberg made the books his own in a very emphatic way: 'there is to be seen his head graved by Albert Dürer, one of the first examples of sticking or pasting of heads, arms, or cyphers into volumes.' Pirckheimer died in 1530, three years after the sack of Buda, and had the opportunity of getting some of the books. We cannot tell to what extent he succeeded, or whether William Oldys was right on the facts before him; but we know from Pirckheimer's own letters that he was the actual owner of at least somemss.that 'came to him out of the spoils of Hungary.'