Page:How to See the Vatican, Sladen, 1914.djvu/13

 PREFACE Nicholas ., the Father of the Vatican Library, the Mæcenas of the Papacy, the Apostle of Learning, that history enters so much.

After these I deal with the Vatican Libraries,—old and new,—the glowing hall and marvellous manuscripts and antiques of the Library of Sixtus ., and the Leonine Library, below it, by which Leo. fulfilled Nicholas .'s ambition of making the Vatican enlighten the world. I give a glimpse of Montaigne in the Vatican Library. I say what I know about the Archives from the time of Pope Saint Damasus; and dwell on the beauty and romance of the Vatican Gardens—the Pope's kingdom of this world. That is followed by a number of shorter chapters on the byways of the Vatican trodden by few feet—the Paoline and Leonine Chapels, the Treasury of the Sistine Chapel, the Pope's private tapestry rooms and personal apartments, the Sala Regia, the Sala Ducale, the Loggia of Giovanni da Udine, the Pope's Coach-house, the Gallery of Raffaelle's tapestries, the Gallery of the Candelabri, the Gallery of the Maps, the mysteries of the Sacristy and the Dome of St. Peter's; and I wind up with the little-known Etruscan Museum and the Borgia Apartments. The few who have crossed the threshold of the Etruscan Museum may be glad to cross it again with one who has visited most of the Etruscan cities, half-buried in flowers and Rh