Mark at Florence, of the Visconti at
Pavia, and even of the library at Oxford. It was noted with pride that
in richness and completeness none could rival Urbino. Theology and the
Middle Ages were perhaps most fully represented. There was a complete
Thomas Aquinas, a complete Albertus Magnus, a complete Bonaventura. The
collection, however, was a many-sided one, and included every work on
medicine which was then to be had. Among the 'moderns' the great
writers of the fourteenth century--Dante and Boccaccio, with their
complete works--occupied the first place. Then followed twenty-five
select humanists, invariably with both their Latin and Italian writings
and with all their translations. Among the Greek manuscripts the
Fathers of the Church far outnumbered the rest; yet in the list of the
classics we find all the works of Sophocles, all of Pindar, and all of
Menander. The last codex must have quickly disappeared from Urbino,
else the philologists would have soon edited it.
We have, further, a good deal of information as to the way in which
manuscripts and libraries were multiplied. The purchase of an ancient
manuscript, which contained a rare, or the only complete, or the only
existing text of an old writer, was naturally a lucky accident of which
we need take no further account. Among the professional copyists those
who understood Greek took the highest place, and it was they especially
who bore the honorable name of 'scrittori.
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