A Great Library 



Holdridge Ozro Collins. LL.D. 



In Venice, that half-oriental City, the mother of famous 

 travelers and adventurous merchants, of patricians and mag- 

 nificoes enriched by commerce, history was written by her 

 Statesmen and Ambassadors., and her Senate was zealous in 

 seeking the must distinguished authors to compile the Annals 

 of that so-called Republic, but which was in Pad a most ex- 

 elusive and despotic Aristocracy. 



The principal and most reliable source from which can be 

 obtained an accurate knowledge of the countries of Europe 

 and Western Asia in all phases of their civic, military, social, 

 commercial and diplomatic conduct of affairs during the middle 

 ages, is the immense collection of manuscripts and early prints, 

 now deposited and most carefully guarded in the building 

 which was formerly the convent or Abbey of that beautiful 

 Church "Santa .Maria Gloriosa dei Fratri minori conventuale, " 

 in these modern prosaic days designated as the Church of the 

 "Frari," situated in the very heart of Venice, but a short dis- 

 tance from the Grand Canal, and easily reached by gondola. 



From this inexhaustible mine Gibbon, Hume, Hallam, Sis- 

 mondi, Byron, Browning, Ruskin, Thackeray, Victor Hugo, 

 Evans, Crawford, our own Cooper and the innumerable his- 

 torians, philosophers, poets and writers of fiction of our day. 

 whose works are not for an age but for all time, extracted their 

 treasures of information, and gave us more knowledge of the 

 condition and events of Europe from the 12th Century down to 

 the time of the Reformation, than was known by the people of 

 that period. 



In 1496 Marino Sanuto, a Venetian statesman, commenced 

 his famous "Diaries" which he (dosed in 1535. This journal is 

 contained in fifty-seven folio volumes, and it is considered the 

 most valuable historical production of the Renaissance. "It 

 was a treasure hidden from all eyes for three centuries, bill 

 modern historians have drawn largely from it." 



In the fourteenth century. Venice, which had always been 

 noted for its religious tolerance, founded a public professorship 

 for the Greek language, and it became a city of refuge for 

 Greek schismatics, towards whom the Roman Church was al- 

 ways hostile. Actuated by this condition of the Church, Car- 

 dinal Bessarion bequeathed to the Republic Ids magnificenl col- 

 lection of Greek manuscripts which, with the manuscripts do- 

 nated by Petrarch are cherished as the choicest of literary 

 t reasures. 



No other city could have supplied Aldus Manutius with 

 the facilities for achieving his success in the reproduction of 



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