Della libraria vaticana ragionamenti di Mutio Pansa divisi in quattro parti. Ne quali non solamente si discorre dell'origine, e rinovatione di essa: ma anco con l'occasione delle Pitture, che vi sono nuovamente fatte si ragiona. Di tutte l'opere di N.S. Papa Sisto V. Dell'Historie de Concilij Generali fino al Tridentino. Delle Librarie famose, e celebri del Mondo. Di tutti gli Huomini illustri per l'inventione delle Lettere. Con l'Agiunta degli Alfabeti delle Lingue Straniere, e con alcuni Discorsi in fine de Libri, e della Stampa Vaticana, & di molte altre Librarie si publiche, come private in Roma. Con tre tavole [...]

THE VATICAN LIBRARY AND PRINTING PRESS

4to (224x155 mm). [8], 331, [29] pp. Collation: *⁴ A-Z Aa-Yy⁴. Register and colophon on l. Yy4r. With the printer's device on the title page and at the end, a woodcut illustration of the Vatican library and several woodcut specimens of exotic types (Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Phoenician, Etruscan, Armenian, Illyrian, Gothic, Arabic and other alphabets) in text, woodcut head- and tail-pieces, historiated and decorative initials (cf. A. Brogiotti & H.D.L. Vervliet, The Type Specimens of the Vatican Press, 1628, Amsterdam, 1968, p. 19). Later half vellum, inked title on spine. Albani red stamp on the title page. Lower outer corner of l. R1 repaired with small loss of text supplied in a skillful handwriting, occasional browning and marginal staining.

First edition (a second issue was printed in 1608 under the title Vago, e diletteuole giardino di varie lettioni). A year later, in 1591, was published another work, in Latin, on the same subject with the title Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana by Angelo Rocca (1545-1620), head of the Vatican printing office and founder of the Biblioteca Angelica.

The work, one of the earliest treatises on library science, is divided into four parts, each of which contains respectively 40, 16, 9, and 29 ‘discorsi'. In the first parts is mainly described the new library building commissioned by Pope Sixtus V and realized from 1587 to 1590 by Domenico Fontana, and the other urbanistic works executed by this architect. In the second part are delineated the paintings on the right wall of the Salone Sistino showing the ecumenical councils of the Church (from Nicea to Trent). The third part deals with the most famous libraries of the world as depicted on the left wall of the Salone. The last part are listed all those who contributed to the invention of the alphabets as depicted on the pillars of the Salone. The work also mentions the invention of printing in China, its later discovery by Gutenberg, and the arrival in Italy of the typographers Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1465 (cf. S.F. Ostrow, The Counter-Reformation and the End of the Century, in:“Rome. Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance”, M.B. Hall, ed., Cambridge, 2005, pp. 287-289).

Mentioned is also (Book IV, Discorso XXVII) the Stamperia Apostolica Vaticana, from which were probably borrowed the exotic types shown in the present work. The pontifical printing press, with technical and scientific staff in the direct service of the Holy See, having as its main purpose the publication and dissemination of knowledge of the manuscripts kept there, was established under Sixtus V with the bull Eam semper ex omnibus (April 27, 1587). A little later, the bull Immensa aeterni Dei (January 22, 1588) established a Congregation of Cardinals pro Typographia Vaticana, with the mandate of ensuring that the publications (including editions in the vernacular as well as in Latin, Greek and Oriental languages, in the original alphabets, relating mainly to the Holy Scriptures, the Church Fathers, collections of Papal Bulls, and other ecclesiastical works in defense of the faith) complied with the requirements of the Council of Trent (cf. J. Ruysschaert, La Bibliothèque et la Typographie Vaticanes de Sixte V. Projects, étapes, continuités, in: “Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae”IV, Vatican City, 1990, pp. 343-363).

“[…] per la seconda [opera], quella di Pansa, rimangono oscure e la motivazione e l'impulso: anche se il volume è dedicato al Cardinal Scipione Gonzaga, non sappiamo chi abbia potuto autorizzare

il giovane autore a fornire in lingua italiana, un resoconto di un'impresa edilizia e pittorica che era stata terminata, nei suoi tratti essenziali, appena da qualche giorno […] Probabilmente anche qui fu lo stesso pontefice, compiaciuto per l'opuscolo di magnificazione poetica che Pansa gli aveva indirizzato nel 1588 […] e desideroso di completare la gamma delle informazioni celebrative sulla Biblioteca Vaticana, da una parte con il lavoro dotto e in latino, che Angelo Rocca aveva già intrapreso, dall'altra parte con una relazione divulgativa in lingua italiana da affidare al Muzio Pansa” (A. Serrai, Muzio Pansa e Angelo Rocca storiografi della Biblioteca Vaticana, in : “Il Bibliotecario”,30, 1991, p. 2).

The mid-fourteenth century, after the Popes had returned to Rome with Gregory XI in 1378, is the period, which may be thought of as the beginning of the modern history of the Vatican Library. It was Nicholas V (1447-1455) who decided that the Latin, Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, which had grown from 350 to around 1,200 from his accession to the time of his death (March 24, 1455), should be made available for scholars to read and study. In the time of Nicholas V, the library was made up of a single reading room; his project was completed and carried out by Sixtus IV (1471-1484), with a bull (Ad decorem militantis Ecclesiae, June 15, 1475), the nomination of a librarian (Bartolomeo Platina), and the necessary financial support. The new institution was housed on the ground floor of a building that had already been refurbished by Nicholas V, with an entrance from the Cortile dei Pappagalli and a façade on the cortile del Belvedere. Sixtus IV had the rooms decorated by some of the best painters of the time. There were four rooms, respectively called Bibliotheca Latina and Bibliotheca Graeca (for works in these two languages); Bibliotheca Secreta (for manuscripts, which were not directly available to readers, including certain precious ones); Bibliotheca Pontificia (for the Papal archives and registers).

The librarian was assisted by three aides and by a bookbinder. Books were read on site under the

discipline of strict regulations; but loans were also made, and the records of the books loaned during the years 1475-1547 are still in existence (Vat. lat. 3964 and 3966). The collection continued to grow, from a total of 2,527 manuscripts in 1475 to a total of 3,498 in 1481. In the sixteenth century, the library continued to develop, particularly under Leo X (1513-1521), with systematic searches and purchases of manuscripts and printed books. Under Gregory XIII (1572-1585), archival material began to be separated from the rest, though it was only under Paul V (1605-1621) that it was entrusted to the care of a separate institution, the Vatican Secret Archives. Between 1587 and 1589, when the initial site had become too small to contain the continuously growing collections, Sixtus V (1585-1590) decided to construct new premises for the Library; he entrusted the project to the architect Domenico Fontana. Sixtus chose for its site the Cortile del Belvedere, where its intermediate and lower courts met, thus abolishing the continuity of the long garden terrace. Additionally, in order to make room for the library he removed the Belvedere ‘theatre'. The building constructed by Fontana was cleverly adapted to its site: he accommodated the difference in height between the parts of the cortile by giving the south side, which was lower, one story more than on the north and he designed the two façades to harmonize with the preexisting architecture of the courtyard.

The library was built in a breathtakingly short time (roughly six months). The public of Sixtus's library consisted of a vestibule, a large two-aisled hall (which is known as the Salone Sistino), two small rectangular rooms, and a section of the adjacent corridor of the Belvedere. Sixtus also installed his private library, which was kept locked, in two other sections of the same corridor, known as the Sale Sixtine. The decoration of all these rooms was planned by the custodian of the library, Federico Rainaldi. Its complex but coherent iconographical scheme glorifies the book and Sixtus V: representations of the legendary inventors of the world's alphabets, of the great ancient libraries, and of the councils of the early church (in which manuscripts played an important role), and interspersed with episodes from Sixtus's pontificate and with views of Rome showing the transformations brought about by him. Rainaldi himself appears in a scene in which Domenico Fontana presents his plans to the pope. The stages in the production of printed books are illustrated in the vaults of the vestibule. The frescoes were executed Giovanni Guerra, Cesare Nebbia, Paul Bril, Orazio Gentileschi, and other late Mannerist painters (cf. J. Ruysschaert, The Apostolic Vatican Library, in: “The Vatican. Spirit and Art of Christian Rome”, New York, 1982, pp. 281-297; see also J.W. Clark, The Care of Books: An Essay On the Development of Libraries, Cambridge, 1901, pp. 47-61).

Muzio Pansa was born in Penne near Pescara in the Abruzzo region from a family of merchants. Educated first in his native city he continued his studies in Perugia, attending the lessons of logic and philosophy of Cardinal Sarnano, Costanzo Torri and later in Rome at the Sapienza University, from which he obtained a degree in philosophy in 1587 and a year later that in medicine. Among

his friends, there were Torquato Tasso and Papito Picedi, later bishop of Parma. He became a member of the Accademia degli Aggirati and of the medical academy of the Ardenti. Although well introduced in the Roman society he preferred to return to his native Penne to practice medicine. Nevertheless he participated to the literary world with various occasional compositions (e.g. on the works executed by Pope Sixtus V, on the death of Philip II, King of Spain, and of that of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, on the election of Pope Clement VIII). A collection of his verses was printed in Chieti in 1596 (cf. G. De Caesaris, Un umanista abruzzese Muzio Pansa, Aquila, 1935, passim; see also R. Aurini, Muzio Pansa, in: “Dizionario bibliografico della Gente d'Abruzzo”, Teramo, 1955, pp. 197-205; and U. Russo, Muzio Pansa, in: “L'Abruzzo dall'Umanesimo all'età barocca”, U. Russo & E. Tiboni, eds., Pescara, 2002, pp. 443-445).

Edit 16, CNCE 29725; Universal STC, no. 846510; Adams, P-172; Cicognara, 4662; Mortimer, Italian, no. 353; A. Nuovo, The Book Trade in the Italian Renaissance, Leiden, 2013, p. 430; F. Petrucci Nardelli, Fra stampa e legature, Rome, 2000, p. 50; S. Rossetti, Rome: a bibliography from the invention of printing through 1899, Florence, 2004, p. 197, no. 7792.

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