The famous Greek, Cardinal Bessarion, in whom patriotism was mingled
with a zeal for letters, collected, at a great sacrifice, 600
manuscripts of pagan and Christian authors. He then looked round for
some receptacle where they could safely lie until his unhappy country,
if she ever regained her freedom, could reclaim her lost literature.
The Venetian government declared itself ready to erect a suitable
building, and to this day the Biblioteca Marciana retains a part of
these treasures.
The formation of the celebrated Medicean library has a history of its
own, into which we cannot here enter. The chief collector for Lorenzo
il Magnifico was Johannes Lascaris. It is well known that the
collection, after the plundering in the year 1494, had to be recovered
piecemeal by the Cardinal Giovanni Medici, afterwards Leo X.
The library of Urbino, now in the Vatican, was wholly the work of the
great Federigo of Montefeltro. As a boy he had begun to collect; in
after years he kept thirty or forty 'scrittori' employed in various
places, and spent in the course of time no less than 30,000 ducats on
the collection. It was systematically extended and completed, chiefly
by the help of Vespasiano, and his account of it forms an ideal picture
of a library of the Renaissance. At Urbino there were catalogues of the
libraries of the Vatican, of St.
Pages:
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219