THE VATICAN LIBRARY

The Vatican Library is the most famous in the world on account of its ancient manuscripts, of which it possesses about thirty-five thousand. It owes its character, if not its inception, to Nicholas V., who was as impressed with a veneration for books as he was for the glories of Rome. We have seen that he was the first of the Popes to show any appreciation or care for the monuments which he had inherited from the Emperors.

The world owes much to Nicholas V. But for him we might have been without the classical masterpieces of Rome, which were the inspirations of the builders of the Renaissance. He gave printing its first recognition in 1454, the year before he died, by issuing the Thirty-Line Indulgence and the Thirty-One-Line Indulgence, on behalf of the Kingdom of Cyprus; and he founded the Vatican Library almost simultaneously with the first printing done in Europe by the use of movable metal types--in other words, simultaneously with the invention of printing. The Vatican Library, which, as it is, contains no less than four thousand five hundred books published in the fifteenth century, might have had a complete set of early printed books if it had not been for the sack of Rome by the Constable Charles de Bourbon in 1527. It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of this. It meant that there was a library belonging to the wealthiest Monarch in Europe, intelligent from the very nature of his office, started in time to receive the first printed books. Historians have not said enough of Thomas of Sarzana, elected Pope as Nicholas V., who with his private collection of nine thousand manuscripts[13] founded the public library of the Popes.

His successors themselves thought so little of him that they allowed his tomb, which was only second in splendour to that of Paul II., to be broken up when Old St. Peter’s was demolished to make room for the new. He was only left in the enjoyment of his sarcophagus. The crypts are full of the fragments of his mausoleum. His immediate successor, Calixtus III., though he made some additions to his books out of the volumes saved from the Turks at the fall of Constantinople, allowed many of them to be dispersed. And Pius II., learned humanist though he was, did nothing much, in his short reign of six years, for the library. From the handsome Paul II. nothing would be expected; nothing came. But Sixtus IV. (the first della Rovere Pope) included it in his magnificent ambitions, and located it in the suite under the Borgia Rooms. He appointed the celebrated Platina, the historian of the Popes, director, and gave the library a definite endowment for its maintenance. Platina’s appointment is the more remarkable because at the time of it he was still in the prison to which Sixtus’s predecessor had consigned him for attacking him in his writings.

Mrs. Oliphant, quoting the chronicler Panvinio, whom she presumes to have worked from Platina’s notes, speaks of Sixtus IV.’s “making under his _chapel_ a library, which was the finest thing of all, for he there reinstated Platina, who had been kept under so profound a shadow in the time of Paul II., and called back the learned man whom his predecessor had discouraged, sending far and near through all Europe for books, and thus enlarging the library begun by Pope Nicholas, which is one of the most celebrated the world possesses, and to which he secured a revenue, ‘enough to enable those who had the care of it to live, and even to buy more books.’” This provision still exists, though it is no longer sufficient for the purpose for which it was dedicated.

All writers on the Vatican Library allude to Melozzo da Forli’s famous fresco[14] in the Vatican Picture Gallery (which is now transferred to canvas), of Sixtus IV. founding the Vatican Library, which, as we have seen, he did not do; he was only the re-founder. Bishop Creighton, in his _History of the Popes_, describes the picture with his customary brevity and point: “The Pope, with a face characterized by mingled strength and coarseness, his hands grasping the arms of his chair, sits looking at Platina, who kneels before him, a man whose face is that of a scholar, with square jaw, thin lips, finely-cut mouth, and keen glancing eye. Cardinal Giuliano stands like an official who is about to give a message to the Pope, by whose side is Pietro Riario, with aquiline nose and sensual chin, red-cheeked and supercilious. Behind Platina is Count Girolamo, with a shock of black hair falling over large black eyes, his look contemptuous and his mien imperious.” Mrs. Oliphant points out that Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, afterwards the great Pope Julius II., Cardinal Riario, and Count Girolamo, who was the Pope’s son or nephew, “a predatory baron, working out a fortune for himself with a sword,” were the three men for whom Sixtus IV. fought and struggled and soiled his hands with blood, and sold his favour to the highest bidder. “They were all young, intoxicated with their wonderful success, and with every kind of extravagance to be provided for; they made Rome glitter and glow with pageants.” Cardinal Riario covered in the whole of the vast Piazza of the SS. Apostoli, and hung it with tapestry for the reception of Donna Leonora, the daughter of King Ferrante; the Cardinal gave every one of her ladies a washing basin of gold. The next year he died, only twenty-eight years old, “poisoned,” Infessura says; “and this was the end of all our fine festa.”

Even Nicholas V. might be denied the title of founder, for Paul Fabre tells us that Pope Saint Damasus had a library, which was dispersed in the persecutions of Diocletian, though his books were not kept in the Vatican, but in a vast edifice built to house them and the archives near the Theatre of Pompey, which the Pope dedicated to San Lorenzo. The name, and probably the site, is still preserved in the Church of S. Lorenzo in Damaso, which forms part of the great Palace of the Cancelleria.

The present splendid building was erected by Fontana for Sixtus V., who considerably augmented the library in the year of the Spanish Armada, 1588; it runs right across the gigantic quadrangle of the Belvedere.

It has grown, not only by the purchases of successive Popes, but by the absorption of various libraries. In 1621, for instance, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria presented Gregory XV. with the Biblioteca Palatina, captured at the fall of Heidelberg by his general, Tilly, in the Thirty Years’ War. In 1658, the Chigi Pope, Alexander VII., purchased for it, at the price of ten thousand scudi, the Biblioteca Urbina founded by the Duke Frederick of Montefeltro; and some of the famous palimpsests from the Benedictine Abbey of Bobbio; and, in 1690, the Biblioteca Alexandrina, bequeathed to the Ottoboni Library by the convert Queen Christina of Sweden, which included the famous manuscripts of the Abbey of Fleury and other important French abbeys, as well as all the books taken by her father, the great Gustavus Adolphus, at Prague, Würzburg, and Bremen, amongst them over two thousand Latin and nearly two hundred Greek manuscripts. In 1746, under Benedict XIV., it received a still greater number of manuscripts by the acquisition of the Biblioteca Ottoboniana, which included the famous Altemps Library, purchased by Alexander VIII., the Ottoboni Pope, in which there were three thousand three hundred and ninety-one Latin manuscripts, and four hundred and seventy-four Greek. And in the same reign the Marchese Alessandro Capponi bequeathed his priceless manuscripts to it. Clement XIII., 1758, Clement XIV., 1769, and Pius VI., in 1775, were also important benefactors. In 1798, the French carried off nearly five hundred manuscripts, including the choicest artistic specimens. But they were restored seventeen years later, with the exception of a few from the Palatine Library, which were returned to Heidelberg. Two years after that, on the application of the King of Prussia, at the request of Humboldt, the Pope restored to Heidelberg no less than eight hundred and forty-eight manuscripts in German, which were of great value to German historians. Pius VII. acquired for the Vatican the library of Cardinal Zelada, in 1800; Leo XII., the noble collection of fine art literature of Count Cicognara, in 1823; and Gregory XVI. also largely augmented the library. Pius IX., in 1856, added forty thousand books, etc., belonging to Cardinal Mai. Lastly, in 1902, Leo XIII. purchased the celebrated library in the Palazzo Barberini for twenty thousand pounds. Everything about the purchase redounds to the honour of the late Pope; the library had been founded by the family of a former Pope, the ambitious Urban VIII. (Barberini), and the impoverished Barberini family were no longer the right people to have it. So Leo bought it. But there was a difficulty in the shape of the aged librarian, a priest; it was hard to deprive him of his office. Leo took him over with the books, and engaged to continue his salary as long as he lived. More than that, he transplanted all the bookcases, and the coats of arms which had hung over them, and re-erected them in the Vatican, where they still remain. The aged priest has survived his patron.

The Vatican Library can be divided, roughly speaking, into the old library on the first floor and the new Leonine Library on the ground floor, under the Sala Sistina. The upper floor comprises, besides the Sala Sistina, a group of rooms adjoining the Gallery of Inscriptions, and the whole of the Long Gallery under the Galleria dei Candelabri, degli Arazzi, and Geografica. The rooms adjoining the Gallery of Inscriptions are used for the librarian and reading-rooms; the Sala Sistina and the Long Gallery are used for show cases and the presses in which the manuscripts are stored. Practically all the printed books are now kept in the Leonine Library, which adjoins the new rooms of the _Archivio_, and was made out of rooms which were originally an armoury and rough magazine, and afterwards a stable, sixteen years ago. So I was informed by Monsignor Ugolini, the delightful, accomplished, and erudite prelate who is the senior _Scrittore_ of the Vatican Library. Under Count Vespignani, the architect, and Comm. Ludovico Seitz, the art director of the Vatican, it was converted into a library in a matter of months, and opened in November 1898.

From the new library, which forms the subject of a separate chapter, a door admits to the Library of the Archives, which are under another Cardinal and another administration. The archives look like the Venetian archives preserved in the convent of the Frari at Venice. Before 1890, those who wished to consult the archives had to make a _giro_ of a kilometre to get to them. Five years ago carriages and horses passed through the Cortile of the Belvedere. Before you leave the new library you have to examine the facsimiles which have been printed of some of the most famous manuscripts of the Sistine Library. And do not omit to have a look at the Barberini Library, where the dear old priest, who was taken over with the library by Leo XIII., will show you the books and the triple coat of arms, and explain why Urban VIII., the Barberini Pope, had _bees_. They were not bees at all, he explained, but I forget what he said they were.

It is a rude shock after this to be taken over the Sistine Library--that is, the Vatican Library proper--by one of the _custodi_ who conduct parties round the Vatican in the usual brisk way, quite devoid of intelligence. Try and get an order to be taken round alone; it is both humiliating and unsatisfactory to be trotted round the galleries as a member of the general public, for they form a highly important museum. If you are obliged to go as a member of the many-headed, you will have to wait for a party to collect outside the door of the Museo Profano, by the entrance to the Sculpture Galleries. When the guide thinks there are enough of you--far too many to have any chance of seeing things properly--he lets you through. You find yourself in the Museo Profano, established by Pius VI., at the northern end of the long arm of the library in the Hall of the Porphyry Columns, to correspond with the Museo Cristiano, established by Benedict XIV. at the other end. It contains the jewels, and other precious pagan antiquities, such as cameos, ivories, bronze candlesticks, fibulae, and bracelets, of the celebrated Carpegna collection. The prime curiosity in one of the glass cases near the door is the hair of a lady of the second century, preserved by _amianto_--_i.e._ asbestos cloth, which for some reason or other has wonderful powers of arresting decay. There are also some dolls from the Catacombs--such a human and unexpected touch; and a vase cut out of amber.

The Museo Profano is the northern end of the Long Gallery of the Vatican Library, which is between three and four hundred yards long, and terminates at the far end in the Chapel of S. Pius V. Before proceeding further, I will point out the extreme simplicity of the ground plan of the library. It is in the shape of a “T,” with its foot starting from the Gallery of Inscriptions, its trunk crossing the courtyard of the Belvedere, while its enormously long arms are formed by the Long Gallery terminating in the Museo Cristiano and S. Pius V.’s Chapel on the south, and the Museo Profano and the entrance to the Sculpture Gallery on the north. The trunk on this floor consists of the Sala Sistina, and underneath it is the new Leonine Library which contains all the printed books. Sundry smaller rooms are grouped round both floors at each end of the trunk. And where the trunk joins the arms is the Archivio, which also has rooms underneath the Long Gallery. When you leave the Museo Profano to traverse the half of the Long Gallery which brings you to the west door of the Sala Sistina, you pass through, in succession, the Capponi, Ottoboni, Alessandrine, and other collections of manuscripts, the last being the so-called Hall of the Vatican Manuscripts. The entire walls are lined with painted presses, in which the manuscripts are kept hidden away from sight, as the ancient Romans kept theirs. You are now at the Sala Sistina, the superb main hall of the Vatican described below. It is perhaps just as well to go round once with the crowd to have an opportunity of observing the idiotic and perfunctory way in which the public are conducted over what should be one of the most interesting sights in the world--the great Vatican Library. I should not like to say that the official guides who show you over it have no more knowledge of the subject, or interest in it, than shopwalkers would have, but they remind you of them all the time, and draw your attention to the kind of things that would appeal to shopwalkers most. Certain books they are perforce obliged to show you, because they are mentioned in Baedeker; but they show far more animation when they are pointing out the various enormous vases from the French and German national potteries, with rich grounds of green or blue, round a light panel with some illustration connected with the giver or the receiver; a view of Paris or Sans Souci, or a portrait of Pius IX., or Leo XIII. These “presents-from-Brighton” are altogether out of place in the Vatican Library; or if they must be there, should be passed over in tolerant silence. The depth of the blue and the green or the sheen of the enamel may be triumphs of the potter’s art, but they are the kind of things which stupid people would give to show that so much money had been spent, and are nothing but a nuisance when they take up valuable minutes in the half-hour or so which the authorities consider sufficient for racing you round the Vatican Library. They are varied with the Sèvres china and silver font used for baptizing the poor Prince Imperial, which was presented by his father. You forget the vulgarity and meretriciousness of that in thinking of the undeserved fall, the pathetic close, of the dynasty of the Third Napoleon.

These are varied by a large Oriental alabaster vase, presented by the Khedive Ibrahim Pasha; two granite tables, supported with bronze figures of Hercules; a malachite cross, presented by Prince Demidoff; a malachite vase, presented by Czar Nicholas I., and a basin of Scotch granite, presented by the Duke of Northumberland to Cardinal Antonelli.

Among the wilderness of French and German public porcelain are a Sèvres candelabra, presented by Napoleon I. to Pius VII., whom he carried off a prisoner to France; three Sèvres vases given by Maréchal MacMahon to Pius IX.; Berlin vases presented by Wilhelm I. of Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany; and vases presented by Charles X., President Grévy, and President Carnot. The most enviable possession of them all is the huge block of virgin malachite, given by the Grand Duke Constantine. But there are two notable vases of red Russian quartz, presented by the Czar Alexander.

The hall in which these Royal mantelpiece vases, only valuable, are exhibited has a singular magnificence of effect. It is over two hundred feet long, nearly fifty feet wide, and thirty feet high, and is divided up the middle by six piers. It was constructed by Domenico Fontana for Sixtus V. in 1588, and paved with marble in the time of Pius IX. These pillars and the roof are decorated with frescoes in the Pompeian style, by Scipione Gaetani and others; and its rich light colouring and airy proportions make the Sala Sistina one of the finest chambers in Rome. But the walls have frescoes representing scenes which introduce views of the various buildings erected by that ambitious Pontiff, Sixtus V., which have little artistic merit. The room contains a number of horizontal cases, with glass tops and locked shutters to go over them, in which are exhibited the principal manuscript treasures of the Vatican. These include:--

The palimpsest of Cicero’s _Republic_, discovered by Cardinal Mai, under a manuscript of St. Augustine’s version of the Psalms, after that famous work had been lost for many centuries.[15]

The celebrated Codex Vaticanus, a Bible of the early part of the fourth century, containing the oldest of the Septuagint versions of the Scriptures.

The celebrated _Virgil of the Vatican_, of the fourth century, which belonged to Cardinal Bembo, and has fifty-nine miniatures.

A Terence of the ninth century, with miniatures, which belonged to Cardinal Bembo.

A Terence of the fourth century, the oldest known.

A Plutarch, with notes by Grotius, from Queen Christina’s Library.

The Breviary of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary in the fifteenth century.

A Pliny, “with interesting figures of animals” (Murray).

The Pontifical of Cardinal Ottoboni, with illustrations by Perugino.

Autographs of Petrarch and Tasso.

A wonderful Dante, with miniatures by Giulio Clovio, who was the pupil of Giulio Romano, and a renowned miniature painter.

A palimpsest of Livy, Book IX., from Queen Christina’s Library.

A Seneca of the fourteenth century, with commentaries by the English Dominican Triveth.

The Menologium Grecum, or Greek Calendar, tenth century, executed for the Emperor Basil. “A fine example of Byzantine art, brilliantly illuminated with representations of basilicas, monasteries, and martyrdoms of various saints of the Greek Church” (Murray).

A Byzantine manuscript of the four Gospels, executed in 1128.

A Hebrew Bible from the Library of the Dukes of Urbino. “The Jews of Venice offered for this Bible its weight in gold” (Murray).

A Sketch of three Cantos of Tasso’s _Gerusalemme Liberata_, and several of his essays and dialogues in his own handwriting.

A Manuscript of Dante in the beautiful writing of Boccaccio, which is signed Johannes di Certaldo.[16]

A Latin poem, by Donizo, in praise of the Countess Matilda, “with a full-length portrait of that celebrated personage, and several historical miniatures of great interest: among which are the Repentance of the Emperor Henry IV. and his Absolution by Gregory VII.” (Murray).

The Homilies of S. Gregory Nazianzen (1063).

Three autographs of Henry VIII.

Several manuscripts of Martin Luther.

To these Tuker and Malleson add the following:--

A Bible, with miniatures by Pinturicchio, from the Montefeltro Library.

The Acts of the Apostles, with beautiful miniatures of the Apostles, presented to Innocent VIII., by Charlotte, Queen of Cyprus, who is buried in the crypt of St. Peter’s.

Part of a very ancient Bible, known as the _Codex Purpureus_, written in silver upon purple parchment, but with the name of Jesus always written in gold.

The enormous Mexican Calendar, recently published in facsimile.

The Autograph and some miniatures of Michel Angelo.

A History of Dion Cassius.

A Life of the Fathers of the Rule of St. Benedict, twelfth century, with miniatures.

A Sacramentary of the fifth or sixth century.

A Sacramentary of Boniface IX. (1389).

An Autograph of S. Thomas Aquinas, the writing of which Montaigne laughingly compared to his own.

The sixth-century Virgil known as the _Romano_.

The seventh-century Virgil known as the _Palatino_.

A History of the Dukes of Urbino, with miniatures by Giulio Clovio.

An Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with miniatures by Giulio Clovio.

A Letter from the Emperor of Burmah to Pius IX., enclosed in an elephant’s tooth.

The famous Vatican Library Book of Joshua, according to Kugler (_Italian Schools of Painting_, revised by A. H. Layard, third impression of sixth edition, John Murray. 1902), is a parchment roll of more than thirty feet long, entirely covered with historical scenes. According to an inscription upon it, it is not earlier than the seventh or eighth century in date, though doubtless copied from some work of the best Christian time. It has the appearance of a carefully, but boldly and freely, drawn sketch executed in few colours. It differs greatly from the highly finished splendour of the later Byzantine miniatures. The whole is so spirited in its composition, so beautiful in some of its motives, so rich in invention, that Kugler assigns it the highest place among the properly historical representations of Early Christian times. He pronounces the colours and weapons as still perfectly unique. Joshua, he says, is always distinguished by the nimbus, as are also the fine symbolical female forms, with sceptres and mural crowns, which represent the besieged and conquered cities. For here, as in so many classical frescoes, the whole landscape is expressed by symbols, such as mountain and river deities. “The wildest action is often most happily portrayed, though the artist, of course, shows little knowledge either of perspective or of the relative proportion of the figures. The copyist of the later period is discernible, almost solely, by his obvious ignorance of the drawing of joints and extremities.”

The celebrated _Virgil of the Vatican_, No. 3225, on the other hand, says Kugler, as an original work of the fourth or fifth century, appears to greater advantage, though in composition it does not equal the Book of Joshua. “The drawing displays a superabundance of motives from the antique, though in the action of the figures it is already very inanimate.”

The famous ancient Greek Calendar, called the _Vatican Menologium_, says Kugler, “with its four hundred and thirty splendid miniatures on a gold ground (executed for the Emperor Basil, the conqueror of the Bulgarians, 989-1025 A.D.), is essentially a work of that period, and decidedly one of the best known. Eight artists, whose names recur from time to time, decorated the separate days of this most costly of all Calendars (extending, however, only to the half of the year) with scenes from the Life of Christ, the Saints, and the history of the Church--the latter in the form of Synods. In the Biblical scenes, traces of earlier motives occur, but the martyrdoms of the Saints are really the work of the tenth century, and, horrible as many of them are, they do that century great credit; for though, in the single figures, we discern a great want of life, yet the composition is, upon the whole, well understood, and here and there very animated. The Saints are seen suffering martyrdom in various ways--dragged to death by horses, burnt in the red-hot effigy of a bull, crucified, drowned, scourged to death, torn by wild beasts in the amphitheatre, suspended by the feet, and so on, by which a tolerably correct knowledge of action is shown, though all idea of anatomy is absent. The drapery and heads are somewhat stiff and conventional, and the nude somewhat meagre, and, moreover, disfigured by an ugly brick-red colour--the result, perhaps, of an improper vehicle, which has also lowered the colours. Far inferior to these miniatures are those of the Dogmatica Panoplia, in the Vatican, executed for Alexis Commenus (1081-1118 A.D.), which are only remarkable for stiff, gold-embroidered garments, and weak decrepit heads. On the other hand, a collection of sermons for the Feast of the Virgin (in the Vatican), belonging to the twelfth century, in which the initials consist chiefly of animals, contains excellent compositions, not only of an early character, but also of that belonging to that century, and is remarkable for great beauty of decorative ornament. Another important manuscript of the time of the Commeni, the Klimax of Johannes Klimakus (in the Vatican), exhibits in small, highly delicate, and clearly drawn compositions, on a gold ground, the well-known allegories of the Virtues as the steps leading to Heaven, and of the Vices as those which lead to Hell. It is interesting here to observe the new treatment in the frequently recurring personifications of these abstract subjects, which were formerly characterized by form and attribute, and generally represented looking on in silent dignity, while here they appear only as small male and female figures, explained by marginal inscriptions--the bad qualities, however, being represented as negroes. The actions are mostly expressed in a very awkward manner, according to some prescribed system.”

The poem of Donizo in praise of Countess Matilda of Tuscany, whose donation of her lands to the Papacy allowed it to exist in its present form instead of sinking to the level of the Archbishoprics of Cologne or Treves, is pronounced by Kugler to be chiefly of historical interest, the execution being so very inferior.

The famous Urbino Bible of 1478 is, says Kugler, obviously by some Florentine hand.

Of the Dante of Giulio Clovio, Kugler says that “the paltry conceits of the allegories disturb the otherwise excellent execution.”

But none of the manuscripts exhibited are so rich in the personality of the writer as those of our English King, Henry VIII. For here are shown two letters of the King to Anne Boleyn; and a dedication copy of the pamphlet against Luther, which won him from Leo X., in 1521, the title of Fidei Defensor--Defender of the Faith--which is still borne by the Kings of England on their coins. It was confirmed by Clement VII., and indignantly taken away in the light of subsequent events. The pamphlet is entitled: “_Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum_,” by Henry VIII., printed on vellum at London in 1521, with the King’s signature and the autograph inscription on the last page but one,

“_Finis, Henry Rex. Anglorum Rex, Henricus, Leo Decimo, mittit hoc opus et fidei testem et amicitiæ._”

That they should so prominently exhibit these writings of our Henry VIII. and Martin Luther as treasures shows how broad-minded the Vatican authorities now are.

Besides the manuscripts and Sèvres and Berlin vases, there are many notable objects exhibited in the room, mostly offerings for Leo XIII.’s Jubilee, such as the gold rock given by the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, and a beautiful Crucifixion, in which the crosses are surrounded by a number of figures in white glazed china, made at the Royal Saxon factories. At the other end of the great hall you will enter a room which reminds me strongly of the Bodleian Library in general arrangement, colour, and decoration. A number of interesting objects are exhibited in it, and the portrait of Cardinal Mai; but it is principally used for students and the man who has charge of the umbrellas. It is connected by the Long Gallery, which has Pius VII.’s famous collection of ancient Roman, Christian, and Pagan Inscriptions affixed to its walls, with the Loggia of Giovanni da Udine under Raffaelle’s Loggie. This gallery inspired Fabre with one of his highest flights of enthusiasm: “Toute la partie antérieure, depuis le portique de Jean d’Udine, sur le cour Saint-Damase jusqu’ à l’entrée de la Vaticane, devint pour la Bibliothèque la plus royale avenue que Sixte-Quint eût jamais pu rêver pour elle.”

You will then retrace your steps through the Grand Hall (Sala Sistina) to the Long Gallery. At the end you will turn to the left and reach the Museo Cristiano, passing through the three rooms marked on the Tuker and Malleson plan as the Hall of the Bonaventura, the Hall of the Obelisk, and the Hall of Aristides. The Vatican Library statue of Aristides is very much admired.

The _Museo Cristiano_ contains, in Room I., a number of objects from the Catacombs, such as lamps, gems, crosses, rings, bas-reliefs, in ivory and wood and metal; diptychs and triptychs of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and works by Benvenuto Cellini. Room II. is the Cabinet of the Papiri, dating from the fifth to the eighth century, and mostly from Ravenna. Room III. is full of valuable little paintings of the Middle Ages, kept in glass cases, including works of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, by Pietro Lorenzetti, Simone Martini, Taddeo Bartoli, Capanna, Mainardi, Nuzi, Sano di Pietro, Pinturicchio, Margaritone, etc. The small altarpiece, with the Virgin and Child, and numerous attendant figures, by Allegretto Nuzi of Fabriano, dated 1365, is of special interest, because this rare painter was the master of Gentile da Fabriano, who painted the celebrated picture of the Three Magi in the Accademia delle Belle Arti at Florence, a picture of world-wide fame alike for its beauty and for its introduction of goldsmith’s work. On the right of the entrance is a Russian Calendar in the shape of a cross of cedar wood, with miniatures (1650). These are not only valuable little pictures by great masters, but extremely interesting and beautiful, and ought to be exhibited in the Vatican Picture Gallery. Kugler mentions also one of them as the best specimen of the Otranto school. He says: “The best specimen--Christ in the Garden with the Magdalen--in the Museo Cristiano in the Vatican, bears the inscription, ‘_Donatus Bizamanus pinxit in Hotranto_,’” and in describing the Museo Cristiano, draws attention to “A very ancient and much-restored mosaic, in the Museo Cristiano in the Vatican, belonging possibly to the third century, as giving us some idea of the style of physiognomy which the heathens attributed to Christ. It is a bearded head in profile, agreeing pretty much with the type of countenance given to the philosophers of that period.”

Here they are thrown away; the shopwalker-guide does not deign so much as a glance to them; he is fully occupied with silver models of cathedrals and monuments like the Lion of Lucerne, and other totally useless but costly objects given by mayors and corporations to Leo XIII. for his Jubilee, in which the town of Quito, in South America, took the lead. The whole of these put together are not so interesting as the toothcombs and fish counters for playing games which came from the Catacombs. And imagine the interest that would have attached to a toothbrush from the Catacombs. Who knows but what the Early Christians used them? They are rather perishable things. The Early Christians certainly had glass plaques, because there are some in this museum.

If you let the guide have his way you would hardly get a peep at the two rooms at the end of the Museo Cristiano, which contain the frescoes that until about a century ago, when Herculaneum and Pompeii began to be opened up, were the most important pictures that had come down to us from the ancient world. The most famous of these frescoes is the so-called Nozze Aldobrandini, which was found on the Esquiline Hill, near the Arch of Gallienus, in the first years of the seventeenth century. Cardinal Aldobrandini bought it, and it was for many years in his villa. It was finally bought by Pius VII. two hundred years later for the sum of ten thousand scudi (crowns). The fresco is supposed to have been a kind of frieze imitated from an original of the time of Alexander the Great. Helbig sees in it a peculiar charm, through its simplicity, clearness, and grace, and a reflection of the fine feeling of restraint that obtained in the best Greek period.

To me the figures in it are like the figures in almost every other classical picture that has come down to us; they remind me of the silhouettes cut out of black paper and touched up with a few lines of white or gilt paint, which satisfied our grandparents in the days before the dire and positive efforts of early photography. It is difficult to believe that Zeuxis painted better than a primitive Japanese. Classical paintings have little beauty, even of colour--even from the wall-paper point of view. We love to look at them for the glimpses they give us of the life of the world when B.C. was passing into A.D. Why has nothing survived to show us if there were painters in Greece who could depict men and women like the sculptors of Tanagra and Myrina? These have told us more about the human side of ancient Greece with their little clay statuettes than we can glean even from the immortal literature of the Greeks. We are driven to the conclusion that every decent painting must have perished, and that our museums contain nothing better than the work of artisan decorators employed by house-builders.

There are two or three other fine groups of ancient Roman frescoes in the same suite: such as the wall paintings found in an ancient villa at Tor Marancia, which Helbig calls a “Gallery of ‘Mythical Fair Women,’ prominent for their crimes and misfortunes in love.” He considers them copies of good originals of stereotyped subjects of Alexandrian art. Among them are Pasiphaë; Scylla, the daughter of Nisos, King of Megara, whose life depended on a purple or golden lock in the midst of his hair. When Minos was besieging Megara, Scylla, of course, fell in love with him, and gave the lock to him, with the result that Megara was captured and Nisos slain. Among the other heroines are Canace, who fell in love with her brother; Myrrha, who fell in love with her father; and Phaedra. Here, too, are the famous scenes from the Odyssey, which adorned a large room in a palace discovered in 1848; “along with other paintings, now lost,” says Helbig, “they formed a kind of frieze above the dado on the walls; and they represent the adventures of Ulysses among the Laestrygonians, in Circe’s Island, and in Hades.” Besides these, the frescoes from Ostia are also well worthy of study.

The Library of the Vatican must have been an enchanting place when the Popes were in all their glory. To-day the parts generally shown to strangers give you more the idea of a beautifully arranged and uncrowded museum than a library. The windows command views of the various gardens of the Vatican--the sylvan scenery of the Observatory Hill, and the formality of the garden of the Pigna, whose vast bronze pine-cone came from the _atrium_, or garden court, that gave entrance to the Old St. Peter’s.

Visitors and readers (who require the permission of the Cardinal Secretary) are admitted from Easter to June 20, from eight to twelve o’clock, and from October to Easter, from nine to one o’clock, on any day on which the library is open. At present it is closed on Mondays, Thursdays, and holidays. The library is closed to the public between June and October.