Page:On the Vatican Library of Sixtus IV.djvu/42

 Three of the seats have three shelves; the rest two; and the total number of volumes has become 222 as against 190: or, an average of 37 to each seat.

The Bibliotheca pontificia is introduced with the following heading:

In intima et ultima secretiori bibliotheca ubi libri sunt pretiosiores.

Each seat has two shelves, and the total number of volumes is 277 as against 259 in 1481. Among the MSS. occurs "Virgilius antiquus litteris maiusculis"—no doubt the Vatican Virgil (Codex romanus), a volume which fully justifies its place among those termed libri pretiosiores. This catalogue closes with the following sentence:

Finis totius Bibliothece Pontificie: viz. omnium scamnorum tam Latinorum quam Grecorum in prima, secunda, tertia, et quarta eius distinctione et omnium omnino librorum: exceptis armariis et capsis: et iis libris, qui Græci ex maxima parte, in scabellis parieti adherentibus in intima ac penitissima Bibliotheca parte sunt positi. Deo Laudes et Gratias.

The increase between 1481 and 1512 in the number of volumes in the parts of the Library defined in the above catalogue will be best understood from the following _table, which shews that 131 volumes had been added in 31 years.

Another catalogue, unfortunately without date, but which has every appearance of belonging to the same period, notes the rooms as Bibliotheca magna publica, i.e. the Latin and Greek Libraries taken together, the Bibliotheca parva secreta, and the Bibliotheca magna secreta.