12 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



every twenty years or so. The thirteenth century is so far removed 

 from us, that we only see its larger features and the main trend of its 

 current. Could we take a nearer view all would be complexity. The 

 conclusion is as true of moslem as of Christian Europe. 



Hakim II., caliph of Cordova in the tenth century, had a library 

 of six hundred thousand manuscripts. The catalogue alone filled forty- 

 four volumes. He kept agents in residence at Alexandria, Cairo, Bag- 

 dad and Damascus to procure for him, at any price, books ancient or 

 modern. Works composed in Persia or in Syria were thus often read 

 in Spain before they were known in the city of the author — witness the 

 Anthology of Abul-faradj of Isfahan, for which Hakim paid a thou- 

 sand gold dinars. His eagerness to acquire was something more than 

 the instinct of the collector, for there are authentic anecdotes of his 

 extensive acquaintance with the biography and history of his times. 

 Even before the reign of Hakim the Moors of Andalusia were inclined 

 to liberal studies. From the tenth to the thirteenth century was the 

 golden age of learning in Spain. Moors, Jews and Christians cooper- 

 ated in scholarly works under the patronage of princes. The mosques 

 of Cordova were crowded with students. The Giralda tower of Seville 

 (1196) was built for Geber's observatory. The picture is alluring; 

 but we must not fail to recognize that it presents only a part of the 

 truth. In Spain, as elsewhere in Europe, these were the dark ages. 



The wealth of manuscripts in the whole of the moslem world was 

 immense. There were, it is said, above seventy public libraries in 

 Moorish ^pain alone. The library of the Fatimite caliphs in Cairo 

 contained 100,000 manuscripts, of which G,500 were devoted to medi- 

 cine and astronomy. When the Crusaders took Tripoli in Syria (1109) 

 100,000 manuscripts were destroyed. Private libraries were often ex- 

 tensive. Faizi, the poet-laureate of Akbar, the Great Mogul, had a 

 private collection of 4,600 manuscripts. 



Europeans of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had a veritable 

 passion for collecting manuscripts also. Charles the Wise in 1373 had 

 a library of 900 manuscripts in the Louvre. Boccaccio, in the middle 

 of the next century, complains that libraries were then falling into 

 decay. The Vatican library was founded in 1453 and the Medicean 

 collection at Florence a little earlier. The library of the Duke of 

 Urbino (1474) cost 30,000 ducats and contained all known classic 

 books. We ask with wonder where these manuscripts came from. 

 We must remember that the library at Alexandria possessed every 

 treasure. Its manuscripts were removed to Eome, and thence to Con- 

 stantinople, and in the meanwhile copied, recopied and copied again. 

 They passed from hand to hand as precious possessions, valued almost 

 as sacred things. The Sortes Virgiliance attributed magical powers to 

 the mere manuscript. Pieces of Homer were sold for charms. Euro- 



