ANTHONY MAGLIABECHI. 
363 
number of about a hundred authors. He would tell not only who 
had treated of the subject designedly, but point out such , as had 
touc^red upon it only incidentally ; both which he did with the greatest 
exactness, naming the author, the book, and often the very number of 
the page in which they were inserted. All this he did so often, so 
readily, and so exactly, that he came at last to be looked uj>on as an 
oracle, on account of the ready and full answers that he gave to all ques- 
tions that were proposed to him, in any science or faculty whatever. 
The same talent inducedthe grand duke Cosmo III. to appoint him 
his librarian ; and no man, perhaps, was ever better qualified for the 
situation, or happy to accept it. He was also very conversant with 
the books in the Laurentian library, and the keeping of those of Leo- 
pold and Francis Maria, the two cardinals of Tuscany. Yet all this, 
it is said, did not appease his voracious appetite, he was thought to 
have read all the books printed before his time, and all in it. Doubt- 
less this range, although very extensive, must be understood of Italian 
literature only or principally. Crescemberi paid him the highest 
compliment on this. Speaking of a dispute whether a certain poem 
had ever been printed or not, he concluded it had not, because Mag- 
liabechi had never seen it. We learn farther, that it was a general 
custom for authors and printers to present him with a copy of what- 
ever they printed, which must have been a considerable help towards 
the very large collection of books which he himself made. His mode 
of reading in his latter days is said to have been this. When a book first 
came into his hands, he would look over the title-page, then dip here 
and there in the preface, dedication, and advertisements, if there were 
any, and then cast his eye on each of its divisions, the different sec- 
tions or chapters, and then he would be able to retain the contents of 
that volume in his memory, and produce them if wanted. Soon after 
he had adopted this method, of what Mr, Spence calls “ foreshorten- 
ing his reading,” a priest who had composed a panegyric on one of 
his favourite saints, brought it to Magliabechi as a present. He read 
it over in his new way, the title-page and heads of the chapters, &c. and 
then' thanked the priest very kindly “for his excellent treatise.” The 
author, in some pain, asked him “ whether that was all that he intend- 
ed to read of his book'?” Magliabechi coolly answ'ered, “Yes, for, 
I know very well every thing that is in it.” This anecdote, however, may 
be explained otherwise than upon the principles of memory. Mag- 
liabechi knew all that the writers before had said of this saint, and 
he knew this priest’s turn and character, and thence judged what he 
would choose out of them, and what he would omit. 
Magliabechi had even a local memory of the place where every 
Look stood, as in his master’s shop at first, and in the Pitti and 
several other libraries afterwards; and seems to have carried this 
farther than in relation to the collection of hooks with w hich he was 
personally acquainted. One day the grand duke sent for him after 
he was his librarian, to ask him whether he could get him a book that 
was particularly scarce. “No, sir,” answered Magliabechi; “for 
there is but one in the world, and that is in the grand signior’s library 
at Constantinople, and is the seventh book on the second shelf on the 
right hand as you go in.” 
