Page:On the Vatican Library of Sixtus IV.djvu/57

 said to give a view of the interior of the library of Sixtus IV., with the books and furniture.

This vast Hospital, situated on the right bank of the Tiber, a short distance below the Ponte S. Angelo, was rebuilt by Sixtus IV. on an enlarged scale, and after its completion in 1482, one of the halls on the ground floor was decorated with a series of frescoes representing the improvements which he had carried out in the city of Rome. This hall is of great height, and lighted by a row of large windows just beneath the roof. The frescoes decorate the spaces between these windows, one between each pair. In such a position the light is not good, and the paintings have suffered somewhat from the effects of time; but the subjects and even the details can be readily made out.

It is curious that notwithstanding the attention bestowed of late years on Italian art, and the interest that has always been taken in the Ospedale di Santo Spirito itself as a specimen of the architecture of the early Renaissance, no one should have thought these frescoes worth studying before 1884, just five hundred years after the more important pictures of the series were painted. The criticism to which they have been submitted since the above date has failed to discover the name of the artist; but it has shewn that the tradition which attributes to Platina the choice of the subjects, and the wording of their inscriptions, is probably true; and further, that the earlier pictures in the series, of which the Library is one, were executed before his death in 1481. I am now able to append a photographic reproduction of the fresco representing the interior of the Library (fig. 9), which Signor Danesi has executed for me, under the superintendence of Father Ehrle, with even more than his usual success.

Those who have been engaged in researches similar to mine will readily understand my feelings of satisfaction as I stood in