Page:On the Vatican Library of Sixtus IV.djvu/21

 ejus) were engaged to build two scaffolds, apparently one for each artist, and move them as required (28 November); and it is distinctly stated that Domenico began to work on the same day . His brother David is not mentioned until 14 December. The last payment is made 4 May, 1476, by which time the decoration of the Latin Library was probably complete. Up to that date the sums paid had amounted to 65 ducats.

A still more important entry in the accounts referring to artistic work is the following:

I gave to Maestro Melozzo, painter, six ducats to buy gold for the painting in the Library, 15 January, 1477. The painter thus designated is Melozzo dà Forli, an eminent artist who had come to Rome in 1472, through the influence, in all probability, of Girolamo Riario, one of the nephews of Sixtus IV., on whom the town of Forli had been conferred as a fief.

The entries which I have collected from the Accounts up to this point show that the Common Library and the Greek Library were practically finished by the end of 1477. The Inner Library or Bibliotheca secreta was undertaken next; and, before it was finished, the Bibliotheca pontificia and the rooms for the Librarian and his assistants were begun. The whole was finished by the end of 1481, but in that year and the previous one, the three separate pieces of work above mentioned were proceeding together, and it is often difficult, if not impossible, to be certain to which a special entry refers.

The furniture for the Bibliotheca secreta was ordered in January, 1477, of a workman who is described as John the