Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/387

 The Vatican Library. 375 in nine different places, 1 nor under Gregory XI. he ordered an inventory in 1375 2 who at last, at the instance of St. Catherine of Siena, went back to Rome in 1376, did the books return. 3 For thirty years we hear nothing in particular of the library at Avignon. Then came the flight of Benedict XIII., on October n, 1403, and subsequently the transference of his library all he could get to Peniscola, in Spain, in 1408. The papal library at Peniscola contained a Dante, and a Latin translation to it also. 4 This library, as is well known, returned to Avignon, passed to the College de Foix, at Toulouse, thence to the library of Colbert, thence to the Bibliotheque Nationale, where it has received from M. Delisle that attention which a col- lection so interesting deserves. But of the Avignon library no part, speaking in the mass, can be said ever to have returned to the Vatican. 5 During the Schism there was no thought of founding a new library at Rome. On the contrary, Gregory XII. in 1407, gave his consent for the sale of certain MSS. of the Church for the price of 500 florins as a subvention to the papal treasury. The regesta of the Bulls of that time, that is, from the return of Gregory XL to 1428, stood for a long time in the convent of S. Maria sopra Minerva. 6 At the end of the schism, Martin V. in 1420 returned to Rome, 7 and wished that the books should be brought back from Avignon. Some few actually 8 came. And in 1428 he ordered those regesta just mentioned to be brought to the palace of St. Peter's and prepared halls for them. But it was Eugenius IV. who really in 1441, commenced the task of reclaiming the Avignon Library. He sent orders to Peter de Foix, the legate at Avignon, for the privilegia and books to be returned which had been carried off "from the 1 Faucon, pp. 64-5. ' 2 Carini, ibid. 3 Ibid., pp. 56-8. 4 Faucon, i., p. 85. s Ibid., 61, </. De Rossi, /. c., p. 105. Also Miintz and Fabre, p. 2. The cata- logue of the Avignon books at Peniscola is in Paris, Lat. MS. 5156 A. F. Ehrle found in 1887 nearly 300 vols. of the Papal Library of Avignon, in the Borghese Library at Rome. These Borghese MSS. have recently been acquired for the "Vatican by Leo XIII. (Carini, pp. 32-3). 6 Carini, 33. 7 Not 1418. See Miintz and Fabre, La Bibl. Vat. au XVe. Sttcle, p. I. 8 Loc. cit., pp. 1-2.