Page:The library a magazine of bibliography and library literature, Volume 6.djvu/388

 376 The Library. Lateran and the churches of St. Peter " to Avignon. 1 In 1443 a catalogue was made of the books of Eugenius IV., and this has just been edited by Mtintz and Fabre. a It con- tains about 340 volumes of sacred and classical literature ; of which two are Greek, a Boethius and a Psalter. Muntz quotes as an example of the comparative ignorance and rarity of Greek in the first half of the I5th century, in Italy, the fact that in 1426 the famous Library of the Visconti, at Pavia, only contained four Greek MSS., an Iliad, a Plato, and two volumes described as written either in Greek or Hebrew. One is not far from the time, as he aptly remarks, when one said "Graecum est. non legitur."* III. FROM 1447 TO PRESENT DAY. WE now at last come to the Vatican Library proper, the beginning of which must be attributed to Nicolas V. (1447-1445) ; and which in his own day was spoken of as " the finest library of the world." 4 The catalogue of it, by Giovanni Tortelli, is not to be found. An inventory of the books of Nicolas V. is extant, made at his death, and from this we can estimate the increase made during twelve years. Nicolas had formed plans of a most magnificent library, but death prevented him (Carini, 39). At the death of Nicolas V. the numbers had reached 1,160 ; and of these 353 were Greek. 5 Since De Rossi wrote his monograph in 1886, an important discovery has been made; indeed, in the following year, by M. Eugene Miintz, whose work on the history of the library in the fifteenth century, written in collaboration with M. Paul Fabre, is my third principal authority. M. Miintz has discovered a copy of the inventory of the Greek Library of Nicolas V. s Calixtus III., the immediate successor of Nicolas V., is said to have enriched " the library with many volumes saved from those of Constantinople, when that city fell into the hands of the 1 Op. dt., p. 5. 3 Ut supra. For other MSS. from this library still existing, see Carini, p. 36. 1 Miintz and Fabre, op. cif. t p. iii. 4 The phrase is Tortelli's. Carini, p. 40.
 * Miintz and Fabre, p. iii. * Muntz and Fabre, pp. 315-344.