Page:On the Vatican Library of Sixtus IV.djvu/11

 lighted by a single window, six on the right, and two on the left, but the position of the room is unknown.

During the sixteen years that intervened between the death of Nicholas V. and the election of Sixtus IV. little or nothing seems to have been done for the increase of the Library; but with the accession of Francesco della Rovere a new era begins. The new Pope had studied, as a young man, at the Universities of Paris and Bologna; and subsequently, had been a successful Professor not only at those Universities, but at Padua, Siena, Florence, and Perugia. He was distinguished, moreover, as a writer on theology and philosophy. No man, therefore, could have been better able to judge of the value of a library, or of the importance of establishing one in a prominent position, to which all who wanted knowledge might resort, as to a fountainhead. The need of such a library in Rome had probably been long in his mind, for in December, 1471, only four months after his election, his chamberlain commissioned five architects to quarry and convey to the palace a supply of building-stone "for use in a certain building there to be constructed for library-purposes "; but the scheme for an independent building, as indicated by the terms here employed, was soon abandoned, and nothing was done for rather more than three years. In the beginning of 1475, however, a new impulse was given to the work by the appointment of Bartolommeo Platina as Librarian (28 February) ; and from that date until Platina's death in 1481 it went forward without let or hindrance. This distinguished