ON THE LIBRARIES OF GREECE. 
procured many also; particularly from MOUNT 
ATHOS. The exertions of the Medicean family 
are familiar to every one. Bessarion, who died 
in 1483, had made a collection of Manuscripts 
at the expense of30,OOO crowns; and his own 
account of his exertions in the cause of Greek 
letters is worthy of notice 1 . The Manuscripts 
purchased by Busbech, during his embassy, are 
known to every scholar, from the account given 
of them by Lambecius. Many also were obtained 
in the East by those whomPe/'rssc* had sent out; 
they visited Cyprus, Egypt, and Constantinople; 
and in the first of these places, portions ot Poly- 
line and Nicolaus Damascenus were found 3 . 
(1) " Cseterum, non tarn magnum numerum librorum quam opti- 
mos et excellentes, deque singulis solummodo unum exemplum studui 
colligere, unde evenit, ut ferfe omnia volumioa quae in ruinis universo?. 
Grsecice remanserant Integra, et quae vix alibi reperiuntur, congesse- 
rim." Cam. Op. Sub. Cent. 3. 
(2) In 1 63 1 . See his Li fe by Cassendi. 
(3) As many Manuscripts had been collected, at vast expense, in 
Greece, for the Library at BUDA (destroyed by the Turks in 1256), w 
ought not to omit mentioning it. Alexander Brassicamts had seen in 
it the whole of Hyperides with Scholia, the Works of many of the 
Greek Fathers, and of the Classical Writers. From this Library 
issued parts of Polybius and Diodorus Sicvlus. A Manuscript of 
Heliodorus, from which was taken the first edition of the ^Ethiopia, 
was found by a soldier, and brought to Vincentius Obsopcnis : it be- 
longed to this Library. Neander thus speaks of the collection : " Ex 
media Gracii inaestimandis sumptibus emerat Matthias Corvinus 
res." Epist. .p. 10. 
