Page:On the Vatican Library of Sixtus IV.djvu/33

 which are 10 in number, there were paid, as entered above, 130 ducats; for the rest there were paid 170 ducats, making a total of 300 ducats, and so he has been paid in full for all the desks, this 7th day of June, 1476. We shall see presently that these twenty-five desks make up the number required, on the evidence of the catalogues, for the Greek and Latin Libraries taken together; for, as has been already mentioned, these two rooms are often described in the Accounts as one room, and are called simply the Library.

In 1477 the furniture for the next room, the Bibliotheca secreta or Inner Library, was begun. The work was entrusted to a Florentine, called in the Accounts merely Magister Joanninus faber lignarius de Florentia, but identified by M. Fabre with Giovannino dei Dolci, one of the builders of the Sistine chapel. The most important entry referring to him is the following:

Master Giovannino, carpenter of Florence, had from me Platyna, librarian of His Holiness our Master, for making the desks in the inner library, for the great press, and the settle, in the said room—all of which were estimated by Master Francis of Milan at one hundred and eighty ducats—he had, as aforesaid, sixty-five ducats and sixty groats on the 7th May, 1477. The last payment on this account was made 18 March, 1478; on which day he also received eight ducats for three frames "to contain the names of the books," and for some