Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/354

 342 The Library. the Frangipanni, after the death of Honorius III., the last pope who makes mention of the earlier registers, deserted the cause of the papacy, and at the command of the Emperor Frederick II., handed over whatever they held for the popes to the Anni- baldi. So that not only the muniment tower but all its contents fell into the hands of the enemies of the Church. 1 De Rossi does not believe that the cause of destruction can to any considerable degree be attributed to the fact that a certain quantity of the early documents were certainly on paper and not parchment. 2 But that ignorance had a good deal to do with it he proves by a quotation from a catalogue made of the archives brought from Rome to Avignon in 1366. Among them was found " a roll written on paper in letters apparently illegi- ble, and written over on some leaf," a palimpsest in fact, " and on that account no entry is made of it." Of all these early Lateran libraries only one manuscript remains the famous Bible known as the Amiatina Laurenziana, now in the Lorenzian library at Florence. 3 Innocent III. was the first to see the necessity of developing new offices at St. Peter's, and commenced the Vatican Curia, 4 and it is thanks to him that through this we have practically an unbroken series of regesta from his date onwards. " Because he thought it not only honourable, but useful, that the supreme pontiff should have a dignified palace at St. Peter's, he built there entirely new houses for the cancellaria and chamberlains, etc." 6 But the Papal collection in the i3th century, Carini, one of the prefects of the Vatican library, whose work upon that subject is the last authoritative statement that we have, can only describe as a travelling library. " The popes of that time," he writes, " from the perversity of the factions and the turbulence now of the people, now of the Roman nobles, were constrained to take with them the treasure (Thesaurum nostrum, et Ecclesia Romans) to Orvieto, to Viterbo, to Anagni, to Perugia," where we find it, for example, in 1304. For all that, under Boniface VIII. (1294-1303) the Apostolic library was the first of its time ; 1 Carini, p. 19. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., pp. 21-2. 4 The Vatican Palace itself was begun by Nicholas III. (1277-1280). See Milman, Latin Christianity, fourth ed., vol. vi., p. 411. 5 Carini, p. 23. Innocent III.'s codification of the regesta continued till Sixtus V.