241 



LIBRARIES. 



LIBRARIES. 



213 



wild animals ; but from an infant my mind has been possessed with ,i 

 vehement fancy for acquiring and possessing books." Julian is recorded 

 to have founded a public library in the grove of Daphne, which was the 

 park of Antioch. Zonaras and Constantino Manasses relate a story of a 

 library founded by the emperor Zeno, to which were attached a prin- 

 cipal librarian, bearing the title of the " (Ecumenical Doctor," and a 

 body of twelve assistant-librarians, who were consulted as oracles in 

 affairs of state; and they narrate that when the emperor Leo the 

 Isaurian, the great iconoclast, found it impracticable to convert them 

 to his opinions in favour of the destruction of images, he caused com- 

 bustibles to be secretly laid round the building at night, and, setting 

 fire to the pile, destroyed in one conflagration the library and the 

 librarians. The truth of the narrative is supported by Baronius 

 and some other Catholic writers, but it is now generally considered 

 more than questionable. Photius, the patriarch, the contemporary of 

 King Alfred, who in his ' Bibliotheca ' of the date of a thousand years 

 ago, so curiously anticipated the plan and utility of a modern Review, 

 must at least have had access to the two hundred and eighty authors 

 whom he analyses. 



The Mohammedan antagonists of the declining Byzantine empire 

 were according to their own accounts, on more than an equal footing 

 with them in regard to libraries. The statements of Arabic historians 

 on this subject seem in fact to belong to the ' Arabian Nights." 

 Quatremere, in his ' Rdcherches sur 1'Egypte,' quotes several narratives 

 which are altogether incredible as they stand, but which may be 

 taken as grounds for believing the existence of libraries of a size and 

 extent quite different from the contemporary collections of Christen- 

 dom. Ibn Aby Tay, according to M. Quatremere, affirms that the 

 library of Cairo contained 1,800,000 volumes, and was the largest in all 

 the Mohammedan empire. M. Quatremere also tells us, on the second- 

 hand authority of Ibn Ferat, that Tahia Ben-Aby-Tay, which seems to 

 be only another form of the name of the same pseudo-historian, as- 

 serted that the library of Tripoli, in Syria, contained 3,000,000 volumes 

 on theology only. The statements, to say nothing of their intrinsic 

 incredibility, contradict each other. Makri/.i, a better authority, speak- 

 ing of the library of the Caliphs, describes it as filling forty chambers, 

 and as containing 18,000 volumes on the sciences, and 2400 copies of 

 the Koran. 



The Arabs in Spain were the most literary of all the Arabs, and in 

 their history we find mention of immense libraries, and also of 

 bibliomania, a disorder of literature which indicates a general flourish- 

 ing condition of the patient. According to Al-Makkari's ' History of 

 the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain,' translated by Gayangos, the 

 inhabitants of Cordova were renowned, in the 10th century, for their 

 passion for forming libraries. " To such an extent did this rage for 

 collection increase," says Ibnu-Said, an Arabian author, " that any man 

 in power, or holding a place under government, considered himself 

 obliged to have a library of his own, and would spare no trouble or 

 expense in collecting books, merely in order that people might say 

 ' Such a one has a very fine library, or he possesses a unique copy of 

 such a book, or has a copy of such a work in the handwriting of such a 

 one.' " A great library was formed at Cordova by the caliph Al-hakera, 

 who caused all sorts of rare and curious books to be bought by his 

 agents in Cairo, Bagdad, Damascus, Alexandria, and other great cities 

 of the East, and who was currently reported to have amassed a col- 

 lection of not less than 400,000 volumes. The historian Ibnu-1-abbar, 

 to increase the marvel, states that, " to [give an idea of Al-hakem's 

 immense erudition, it will only be necessary to record a well-ascertained 

 fact though strange to say neither Ibnu-1-faradhi, nor Ibu-Bashkuwal 

 have mentioned it hi their works namely, that not one book was to be 

 found in Al-hakem's library, whatever might be its contents, which the 

 caliph had not perused, writing in the fly-leaf the name, surname, and 

 patronymic of the author, that of the tribe or family to which he 

 belonged, the year of his birth and death ; after which followed such 

 interesting anecdotes about the author or his work, as through his 

 immense reading he had derived from other writers." Even those who 

 have had no experience in cataloguing will agree that to do this for a 

 collection of 40,000 volumes, not to say 400,000, would require no 

 common share of industry. On the death of the caliph, in A.D. 796, 

 the throne of Cordova was usurped by Al-mansur, who in order to 

 conciliate the favour of the Mohammedant heologians, ordered all the 

 books on philosophy and similar subjects to be destroyed, and they 

 were accordingly either burned in the public squares or thrown into 

 the ijellB and cisterns of the palace. Finally, on the overthrow of the 

 dynasty of the Ommiades by rebel princes, Cordova was invaded and 

 sacked, the palace of the caliphs was levelled with the ground, and the 

 books of the splendid collection of Al-hakem taken as plunder, and 

 old in distant countries at the lowest prices. 



While the number of books among the Arabs was so incredibly 

 large, among the Christian nations the number was inconceivably small. 

 The instinct of collecting and that of preserving libraries seem in some 

 casea to have been equally deficient. Charlemagne was persuaded by 

 his English librarian, Alcuin of York, to collect a library equal to that 

 which Alcuin had seen in England; but in his will, the monarch 

 expressly directed that it should be sold, and the proceeds given to 

 tint poor. The monastic libraries are usually spoken of as the great 

 literary establishments of the middle ages, but the collections of monks 

 .-ui'l magnates are on the same scale of distressing poverty. The 



AKT8 AJtV SOL DIV. VOL. V. 



monastic library of Fulda, which Charlemagne had increased, if not 

 founded, in A.D. 744, was celebrated during the whole middle ages, 

 and in the year 1561 was found to contain 794 manuscripts. In the 

 12th century, the monastery of Monte Casino contained 90 volumes. 

 Tho church of Ratisbou possessed in 1251, a library of 500 volumes; 

 the library of the Sorbonne, in Paris, amounted in 1292 to 1000. 

 The chronicler Geoffrey of Beaulieu relates that St. Louis, when on the 

 Crusades, heard of a great sultan of the Saracens who made careful 

 search for books of all kinds, and who had them transcribed at his 

 own expense, and placed them in libraries for the use of the learned. 

 St. Louis resolved, therefore, on his return to his own kingdom, to 

 have copies made of all the books of the Holy Scriptures and general 

 edification that he could find in the different abbeys, and he collected 

 at the Holy Chapel, still existing at Paris, numerous works of St. 

 Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Jerome, and other authors. This library, 

 like that of Charlemagne, was again dispersed at the king's death, and 

 distributed among three religious orders. In 1373, as has already been 

 mentioned, the library of the king of France consisted of only 910 

 volumes. 



The revival of learning which preceded the invention of printing, 

 had already begun to produce an alteration in this state of things, 

 when that invention came to quicken and confirm it. The middle 

 ages may be said to terminate with this discovery, in the middle of the 

 15th century. 



So much has already been incidentally said of the continental 

 libraries of modern times, that to enter on the subject in full would 

 be to go over ground that has been already trodden. It will therefore 

 be sufficient to treat of it here with comparative brevity. M Italy 

 was the first country to be conspicuous in this point of view. Italy 

 is still rich in libraries of the second and third magnitude, but can 

 boast of none that belongs to the first. It has been already men- 

 tioned that the Vatican, though rich in manuscripts, is now shown to 

 contain not more than 100,000 printed books. There is a larger 

 library in Rome itself, the Casanata, known by its admirable catalogue, 

 made by the astronomer and bibliographer, Audiffredi, and said to 

 contain 120,000 volumes of printed books and manuscripts. The 

 collection, located at Naples since 1804, called the Biblioteca Borbonica 

 or Bourbon library, and reputed to contain 200,000 printed volumes, 

 is probably the largest library in Italy. The reputation of being one 

 of the best belongs to the Brera library at Milan ; a collection which, 

 formed from the library of the suppressed order of Jesuits in 1772, was 

 augmented by that of Count Firmian, the Austrian governor of Lom- 

 bardy, a famous collection, in the published catalogue of which one 

 volume is occupied with the English books. The numbers of the Brera 

 were at one time greatly overstated ; they have, upon counting, been 

 reduced to about 100,000. The other great library of Milan, the 

 Ambrosian, consisting of more than 100,000 printed books and 15,000 

 manuscripts, is that which attracted the attention of Europe in the early 

 part of the 19th century, by the discoveries made in it by Angelo 

 Mai, the librarian, of ancient palimpsests. The library was founded in 

 the 17th century by the almost canonised Frederic Borromeo, the 

 cousin of St. Charles of the same family, who left the singular 

 injunction, that the manuscripts should not be published. At Bologna, 

 the institution founded by Count Marsigli, the martial companion of 

 Prince Eugene, counts among its 150,000 volumes a collection of 

 Oriental manuscripts, brought by the count from the wars ; and among 

 its printed books a collection, scarcely less rare in Italy, of German 

 poetry and literature, introduced by its librarian the great linguist 

 Mezzofanti. Venice boasts in the library of St. Mark, a collection 

 which was founded by Cardinal Bessarion, but of which Roncelli can 

 only state by conjecture that it contains 100,000 volumes. It is sub- 

 ject to less doubt that it is one of the most magnificently lodged 

 libraries in Europe, having been removed from the library buildings in 

 the place of St. Mark, to the great hall in the Doge's palace. Florence 

 is remarkable also for the magnificent building designed by Michael 

 Angelo, in which is enshrined the Laurentian library, a collection of 

 manuscripts so na'ined from one of its founders, Lorenzo de" Medici. 

 The great collection of printed books at Florence is called the Maglia- 

 becchian, from its founder, Magliabecchi, the celebrated " book-glutton," 

 who was librarian to the Grand Duke, and who at his death in 1714, 

 left his library to the public, and all his property for the purpose of 

 enlarging and preserving it. His friend Manni, hi 1731, added his own 

 collection from respect for the memory of Magliabecchi; and in 1771, 

 when the Grand Duke Leopold munificently gave up his own library 

 for the public benefit, the printed books were sent to the Maglia- 

 becchian, and the manuscripts to the Laurentian. A few years ago 

 Molini, the librarian, prepared to carry out in full the idea of bringing 

 together in one collection all the printed books in Florence belonging 

 to the public, and in another all the manuscripts ; but the project, 

 though commenced, seems to have stopped half way. One of the most 

 interesting libraries in Italy is that of Ferrara, which though not of 

 earlier date than 1747, contains 90,000 volumes, and among them the 

 autographs of part of the ' Orlando Furioao,' of part of the ' Jerusalem 

 Delivered,' and of Guarini's ' Pastor Fido.' Of the remaining libraries 

 of Italy, that of Parma, remarkable for containing the Hebrew collection 

 of De Rossi, was said by Roncelli, in 1846, to amount to 90,000 

 volumes; that of Piacenza, to more than 40,000; that of Lucca, to 

 more than 50,000 ; that of Turin, to 120,000i Generally speaking the 



