Research Guides: Special Collections- Vatican Film Library : Vatican Library

Overview

These pages reproduce the entries included in Rome Reborn, an exhibition of Vatican Library manuscripts and printed materials held by the Library of Congress in 1993. The plate numbers from the printed catalog by Anthony Grafton are given, preceded by the letters "RR". The Vatican Film Library owns the microfilms copies of most of these manuscripts, and the Libguide includes links to the manuscripts which are included in the SLU libraries online catalog.

Treasures

Urbino Bible
Call Number: Urb. lat. 2, fol. 304 verso.
Publication Date: ca. 1476-78
RR, Plate 1: This spectacular two-volume Bible was produced for the papal mercenary and duke of Urbino. The illuminations make this book one of the finest works of art of the fifteenth century.

Capp. Sist. 10, fols. 2 verso-3 recto

Iliad by Homer
Call Number: Vat. gr. 1626, fols. I verso- 2 recto
Publication Date: ca. 1477-83
RR, Plate 2: The illustrations draw on the archaeological scholarship of Paduan antiquaries to represent the Greek and Trojan heroes. Sadly, time or funds ran out, and most later images in the series are either merely sketched in or entirely omitted.
Orationes by Cicero
Call Number: Vat. lat. 1742, fols. 2 verso- 3 recto
Publication Date: ca. 15th century
RR, Plate 3: Gaspare di Sant'Angelo's manuscript of Cicero portrays the Roman orator and his audience in contemporary dress before a gilt background. The image itself is framed in interlacing white vines or branches, one of the most common ornamental devices of the Italian illuminated manuscript of the Renaissance.
Bucolicum Carmen by Petrarch
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3358, fol. 49 recto
Publication Date: ca. 1357-62
RR, Plate 4: Petrarch notes here that he wrote this manuscript of his Latin bucolic poem, modeled on that of Virgil, "with his own hand"--manu propria.
Sunspot Observations by Galileo Galilei
Call Number: Barb. lat. 6479, fol. 18 recto
Publication Date: ca. 1612-23
RR, Plate 5: These drawings represent sunspots-- whose existence proved that the sun was not the perfect, unchanging body that traditional Aristotelian cosmology considered it to be. Galileo's work received strong support for a long time from the future Pope Urban VIII.
Assertio Septem Sacramentorum Adversus Martinum Lutherum by Henry VIII of England
Call Number: Vat. Lat. 3731, fol. 87 verso
Publication Date: 1521
RR, Plate 6: Henry VIII supposedly wrote--or at least signed--this defense of the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church against Martin Luther. He did add, in his own hand, the couplet seen here, in which he presents the book to Pope Leo X.
Letters to Anne Boleyn by Henry VIII of England
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3731A, fol. 7 recto
Publication Date: before 1533
RR, Plate 7: Henry's loving letters to Anne Boleyn. The letters, though undated, predate their marriage early in 1533 and presumably come from the period, toward the end of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, when he made Anne Boleyn pregnant and tried unsuccessfully to induce the Vatican to grant him a divorce from Catherine.
Georgics and Bucolics (The Palatine Virgil) by Virgil
Call Number: Pal. lat. 1631, fol. 15 verso
Publication Date: ca. 500
RR, Plate 8: This spectacular manuscript, written in Italy in a large rustic hand, may have been completed before the fall of the Roman empire, and thus is physically as well as intellectually part of the classical heritage preserved in the Vatican.
Comedies by Plautus
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3870, fols. I verso- 2 recto
Publication Date: ca. 9th century
RR, Plate 9: The revival of secular drama in Renaissance Europe largely stems from the discovery of this work. As for this manuscript, Nicholas of Cusa brought it to Rome, where it passed through the library of Cardinal Giordano Orsini into that of the Chapter of Saint Peter's, who gave it to Pope Leo X.
Historia Augusta
Call Number: Pal. lat. 899, fols. 209 verso- 210 recto
Publication Date: ca. 9th century
RR, Plate 10: The Historia Augusta is an amusing collection of lives of the Roman emperors. The texts purport to be the work of six distinct historians, but were composed by a single forger. One of the many remarkable qualities of the Vatican's manuscripts is the richness of the marginal notes in which generations of scholars discussed and evaluated their content.
Rules of the Modern Academy by Aldo Manuzio
Call Number: Stamp. Barb. AAA IV 13, inside front cover
Publication Date: ca. 1500
RR, Plate 11: This printed sheet calls for those concerned with preparing and correcting editions of the Greek classics in his shop in Venice to speak only classical Greek. Those who fail to do so must pay fines, and when these have sufficiently accumulated, they are to be used to pay for a "symposium". The Renaissance ideal of the publishing house as a center of learning emerges vividly.

Renaissance and Baroque Rome

Image of Rome in the fourteenth century
Call Number: Vat. lat. 1960, fol. 270 verso
Publication Date: ca. 1330-40
RR, Plate 12: This plan of Rome from the fourteenth-century Satyrica historia of Paolino of Venice, offers a comprehensive view of the city. Though the view is schematic, it is far from arbitrary or inaccurate. One can easily find Saint Peter's, the Capitoline, the Pantheon (in the center), and many other landmarks and also see how deserted much of the ancient city was.
Plan of Rome. From A. Lafréry by Ugo Pinard
Call Number: Stamp. Barb. XI 13 A
Publication Date: 1555
RR, Plate 13: From A. Lafréry, "Speculum Romanae magnificentiae". This fine printed plan gives a sense of the growth of the city in the Renaissance, as central districts of Rome filled out again as popes, cardinals, and pilgrims spent lavishly.
Papal Blessing
Call Number: Cicognara XII 541, fol. iii verso
Publication Date: 1555
RR, Plate 14: From A. Lafréry, "Speculum Romanae magnificentiae". This engraving shows the great church (St. Peter) still under construction, the dome unfinished, and gives a good sense of the scale and duration of the undertaking.
View of Rome by Antonio Tempesta
Call Number: Riserva S 79
Publication Date: 1593
RR, Plate 15: A full-scale vision of the city vividly depicts the changes Sixtus V made in the urban fabric.
Procession to mark the erection of the Vatican obelisk by G. Guerra
Call Number: Stamp. Barb. O VIII 40, plate B.
RR, Plate 16: The formal procession that accompanied the erection, exorcism, and re-dedication of the Vatican obelisk in 1587 is commemorated here.
Alternate design for the Piazza di San Pietro by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini
Call Number: Chig. P VII 9, fol. 23 recto
Publication Date: 17th century
RR, Plate 17: Scholars as well as architects argued over the shape the piazza before Saint Peter's should take. But the result was perhaps Bernini's most famous creation. These drawings show some of his struggles with the many problems posed by the site.

The Popes and their Curia

De Orthographia by Giovanni Tortelli
Call Number: Vat. lat. 5229, fol. I recto
Publication Date: ca. 1450-99
RR, Plate 18: This fine presentation copy of Tortelli's critical Latin lexicon praises Pope Nicholas V lavishly, not only for his learning but also for his patronage of scholars, his support of translations from the Greek, and his project to create a great library, which Tortelli describes as "the most splendid that has ever existed."
Lives of Jesus and the Popes by Bartolomeo Platina
Call Number: Vat. lat. 2044, fols. 2 verso- 3 recto
Publication Date: ca. 1474
RR, Plate 19: Bartolomeo Platina, librarian under Sixtus IV, compiled this set of sometimes quite critical biographies of the popes. This presentation copy of Platina's work contains corrections in his hand.
Prognostichon Hierosolymitanum by Giovanni Michele Nagonio
Call Number: Vat. lat. 1682, fols. 8 verso- 9 recto
Publication Date: ca. 1507-09
RR, Plate 20: Giovanni Nagonio, a papal functionary who wrote celebratory verses like these for many European monarchs, here celebrates the triumphal entry of Julius II into Rome after his victory over the Bolognese. On the facing page one sees a self-satisfied pontiff, ringed by short celebratory texts. Nagonio's poems, which fill the rest of the book, reach a self-parodic level of flattery.
De Gentilium Deorum Imaginibus by Lodovico Lazzarelli
Call Number: Urb. lat. 717, fol. 13 recto
Publication Date: ca. 1475
RR, Plate 21: Lodovico Lazzarelli here describes the cosmos, the planets and the arts in a lovely illuminated manuscript. Lazzarelli clearly sees no contradiction between his Christian faith and his fascination with ancient wisdom.
Delphic sibyl
Call Number: Stampe V 15, no. 23
RR, Plate 22: Image of the Sistine ceiling which represents one of the sibyls, the pagan prophetesses of antiquity. This print is one of a great many made by artists who hoped to convey something of the power of the Sistine ceiling.
De Perenni Philosophia by Agostino Steucho
Call Number: Vat. lat. 6377, fols. 17 verso- 18 recto
Publication Date: ca. 1540
RR, Plate 23: Agostino Steucho, a Vatican librarian in the mid-sixteenth century, presented Pope Paul III with this copy of his elaborate treatise "On the Perennial Philosophy". He illustrated this "perennial philosophy" with what he described as "flowers picked from all of philosophy that give off the scent of divinity".
The Last Judgement
Call Number: Stampe V 15, no. 24
RR, Plate 24: This print of Michelangelo's Last Judgment conveys both something of the artist's power and something of the new religious mood of the 1530s.
Exhortatio pro calendarii emendatione by Paul of Middelburg
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3684, fols. 2 verso- 3 recto
RR, Plate 25: Paul of Middelburg details the arguments used by contemporary Jews to criticize Christians for observing Easter at the wrong time.
Revision of the Breviarum Romanum by Guglielmo Sirleto
Call Number: Vat. lat. 6283, fol. 156 recto
Publication Date: ca. late 16th century
RR, Plate 26: The liturgical calendar, the breviary, and the liturgy all needed to be pruned and reformed. Guglielmo Sirleto, Vatican librarian, worked on all these projects. He marked up a printed edition of the Roman breviary, introducing radical cuts and changes into long-standard texts.
Sixtine Vulgate
Call Number: Vat. lat. 9509, fol. VII recto
Publication Date: 1590
RR, Plate 27: Protestants claimed that the Vulgate, or Latin translation of the Bible, often misrepresented the original Hebrew and Greek. A committee was appointed to revise it. Pope Sixtus V became impatient, so he produced an edition by fiat in 1590. The text rapidly proved an embarrassment and after his death was suppressed, but annotated copies like this one survive.
Sixtine Septuagint
Call Number: S. Scrittura II T. V. I, fols. a4 verso- A recto
Publication Date: 1590
RR, Plate 28: This Sixtine edition of the Greek text of the Old Testament was a very careful piece of work, based on the Codex Vaticanus, still considered one of the two most important and oldest manuscripts.

The Library

Histories by Thucydides
Call Number: Vat. lat. 1801, fol. 184 recto
Publication Date: 1452
RR, Plate 29: Lorenzo Valla translated the Greek historian Thucydides for Nicholas V. His final note, shown here, attests that this copy was deposited in the Vatican in 1452 to serve as a master against which all others could be corrected. The margins of the text contain numerous corrections and explanatory notes by Valla.

Pope Sixtus IV appoints Bartolomeo Platina prefect of the Vatican Library, 1477, Fresco by Melozzo da Forlì

Inventory of the Library, 1475 by Bartolomeo Platina
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3954, fols. 49 verso-59 recto
Publication Date: 1475
RR, Plate 31: One of the oldest surviving catalogs of the library, this inventory includes Platina's signature on fol. 76 and reveals a system of classification by subject, author, and title.
Inventory of the Library by Zanobi Acciaiuoli
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3955, fols. I verso- 2 recto
Publication Date: 1518
RR, Plate 32: This inventory shows the cataloging method used in the early years of the library. Books were grouped by subject on banchi, or benches, to which they were chained.
Parchment from travoletta
Call Number: Reg. lat. 1899, fol. 29 recto
Publication Date: ca. 16th century
RR, Plate 33: At each banco, lists like this guided the reader to the exact item he needed.
Second Register of Loans
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3966, fol. 43 recto
Publication Date: ca. 15th century
RR, Plate 34-35: For some time the Vatican let its library books circulate. Borrowers entered their names and the titles of the books they took out in registers like this one, and the librarian crossed out the entry when the books came back.
Inventory of the Library by Bartolomeo Platina
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3953, fol. 54 recto
Publication Date: ca. 15th century
RR, Plate 36: The note here acknowledges that a manuscript of Xenophon did not in fact belong to the library.
Letter of Leo X to Johannes Rufo, nuncio in Spain
Call Number: Vat. lat. 6189, fol. 152 recto
Publication Date: 1519
RR, Plate 37: The Pope demands the return of Greek biblical manuscripts borrowed from the library by scholars working for Cardinal Ximénes.
Charles Borromeo, receipts for the loan and return of twelve books
Call Number: Vat. lat. 6379, fols. 44 recto, 45 verso
Publication Date: ca. 16th century
RR, Plate 38
Index of the library under Paul III
Call Number: Vat. lat. 3967, fol. 49 verso
Publication Date: ca. 16th century
RR, Plate 39: This index, a very extensive one, was used in the library until 1620--powerful evidence for the continuity of the basic procedures developed in the fifteenth century.
Byzantine Theological Texts
Call Number: Vat. gr. 837, fol. 220 recto
RR, Plate 40: This volume of anti-western Byzantine theological texts should contain 329 written leaves, but it now ends at leaf 220.