seating 1800 monks ; galleries extending the entire length of 

 the great Church, and these together scarcely suffice to con- 

 tain the immense collections of manuscripts. The most noted 

 of these rooms are designated as the Ducal Chancery, the Se- 

 cret Chancery, the Honor Chancery and the Registers of the 

 Council of Ten. There are over 260,000 portfolios and Regis- 

 ters, together containing over 4,000,000 manuscripts. "Here 

 are chronologically arranged all the papers relating to taxes, 

 the mint, title-deeds, civil and criminal cases and papers con- 

 cerning finance, the public health, the arsenal, war, sumptuary 

 legislation, maritime possessions, navigation, the arts, trades 

 and liberal professions, the departments charged with the in- 

 spection of Monasteries and public services, the ordinary po- 

 lice — under the picturesque name of Signori della Notti al 

 Civili e al Criminale, waters, forests, mines, State loans, com- 

 munal properties, and a multitude of other Uffisi or offices, 

 ramifications of these different great departments." 



A noble room, which formerly was the Library of the 

 Monks, now called the Manimorte, is devoted solely to docu- 

 ments relating to control and management of the ancient Con- 

 vents and Churches. 



When these documents were scattered around the city in 

 various buildings, fires destroyed thousands of manuscripts of 

 the different collections. In the sixteenth century, two great 

 conflagrations destroyed a large portion of the manuscripts of 

 the Secret Chancery embracing Diplomatic correspondence 

 from the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks down to the 

 death of Francis I of France, an irreparable loss to history. 



After the Conquest of Venice in 1797 Napoleon carried to 

 France many of the Archives, which were subsequently sent to 

 Austria, afterwards compelled to return them to France and 

 they were restored to Venice. Of course in these extensive 

 journeys many must have been lost, stolen or destroyed. 



In 1852 when Venice formed a portion of the Austrian 

 Empire, Vienna, coveting the most precious part of these 

 archives, "intended nothing less than to plunder the whole 

 Secret Chancery of Ancient Venice, all the despatches, all the 

 reports, all the diplomatic element which was one of the historic 

 glories of the famous State," but owing to the strenuous exer- 

 tions of the Cavaliere Mutinelli, at that time Librarian, who 

 was warned of this plot in the regions of imperial power, the 

 hand of Francis Joseph was stayed on the very eve of signing 

 the fatal decree, and it was during the administration of Mu- 

 tinelli that the first advances were made towards throwing 

 open this immense collection to the student and historian. Up 

 to this time, access to the examination of this collection was 

 practically an impossibility. 



The classification and finding lists are perhaps better than 

 any other of the great Libraries of Europe — excluding Eng- 



84 



