Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/351

 The Vatican Library. 339 Anglis) this interchange went on. He mentions the many books sent by Gregory the Great to St. Augustine, and in a footnote gives the localities, in which all that are still known, are to be found. 1 And he gives evidence for his statement that at the time the library of the Holy See was the centre from which sacred books were diffused through Northern Europe. He mentions of course the five journeys of St. Benet Biscop, from Bishopswear- mouth to Rome, in 653, 658, 671, 678, 684, and the books which he brought back on each occasion. The story of the discovery by De Rossi in the Laurentian Library at Florence of the copy of the Pandects, brought by St. Benet's successor from Rome, and then returned in a copy at his death to Rome ; and of his restora- tion, without any shadow of doubt, of the original inscription, is interesting to all Britons, but not germane to my subject. At the end of the 7th century or the beginning of the 8th, Pope Sergius I. took the charge from the superintendent and granted the care of the library to Gregory their sub- deacon, who afterwards was raised to St. Peter's Chair ; and from this time onwards the list of librarians is continuous. 2 Great care was bestowed on the Lateran Treasury by Pope Zacchary (741-752) in the 8th century. The Liber Pontificalis records the structural improvements which he made ; and under Paul I. (757) and Adrian I. (772-795), we have, also in the same century, explicit references to liturgical books and books by Aristotle, mentioned in connection with King Pipin and Charle- magne in the same library. About the 8th century we first begin to hear of books and tabulated lists at St. Peter's ; while we also hear then of magnificent gifts to the Holy See. Charlemagne sends the psalter of his dead wife Hildegard to Hadrian I. in 783. Agnello of Ravenna about 839 complains of a very fine volume, written by order of a bishop in the 6th century, having found its way to Rome. 3 This vast treasure of books of inestimable value, of regesta, and charters gathered together before the nth century in the chests, library, and sacristy of the Apostolic See, in the " con- 1 Op. cit., p. Ixxii. The Cambridge Gospel is in the Library of Corpus Christi College, MS., No. 286. Engraved in Westwood's Palaeographia Sacra Pictona. De Rossi translates Cambridge by " Cambricensis. " 2 Given by the Assemani in their catalogue, 1756. 3 For many others, see De Rossi, Ixxxv.