The Care of Books Part 5

My meads are full of thorns, but flowers are there; If thorns displease, let roses be your share.

Here both the Laws in tomes revered behold; Here what is new is stored, and what is old.

The authors selected are disposed of either in a single couplet, or in several couplets, according to the writer's taste. I will quote the lines on S. Augustine:

Ment.i.tur qui [te] totum legisse fatetur: An quis cuneta tua lector habere potest?

Namque voluminibus mille, Augustine, refulges, Testantur libri, quod loquor ipse, tui.

Quamvis multorum placeat prudentia libris, Si Augustinus adest, sufficit ipse tibi.

They lie who to have read thee through profess; Could any reader all thy works possess?

A thousand scrolls thy ample gifts display; Thy own books prove, Augustine, what I say.

Though other writers charm with varied lore, Who hath Augustine need have nothing more.

The series concludes with some lines "To an Intruder (_ad Interventorem_)," the last couplet of which is too good to be omitted:

Non pat.i.tur quenquam coram se scriba loquentem; Non est hic quod agas, garrule, perge foras.

A writer and a talker can't agree: Hence, idle chatterer; 'tis no place for thee.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 16. Great Hall of the Vatican Library, looking west.]

With these three examples I conclude the section of my work which deals with what may be called the pagan conception of a library in the fulness of its later development. Unfortunately, no enthusiast of those distant times has handed down to us a complete description of his library, and we are obliged to take a detail from one account, and a detail from another, and so piece the picture together for ourselves. What I may call "the pigeon-hole system," suitable for rolls only, was replaced by presses which could contain rolls if required, and certainly did (as shewn (fig.

13) on the sarcophagus of the Villa Balestra), but which were specially designed for _codices_. These presses were sometimes plain, sometimes richly ornamented, according to the taste or the means of the owner. With the same limitations the floor, the walls, and possibly the roof also were decorated. Further, it was evidently intended that the room selected for books should be used for no other purpose; and, as the books were hidden from view in their presses, the library-note, if I may be allowed the expression, was struck by numerous inscriptions, and by portraits in various materials, representing either authors whose works were on the shelves, or men distinguished in other ways, or friends and relations of the owner of the house.

The Roman conception of a library was realised by Pope Sixtus V., in 1587[113], when the present Vatican Library was commenced from the design of the architect Fontana. I am not aware that there is any contemporary record to prove that either the Pope or his advisers contemplated this direct imitation; but it is evident, from the most cursory inspection of the large room (fig. 16), that the main features of a Roman library are before us[114]; and perhaps, having regard to the tendency of the Renaissance, especially in Italy, it would be unreasonable to expect a different design in such a place, and at such a period.

This n.o.ble hall--probably the most splendid apartment ever a.s.signed to library-purposes--spans the Cortile del Belvedere from east to west, and is entered at each end from the galleries connecting the Belvedere with the Vatican palace. It is 184 feet long, and 57 feet wide, divided into two by six piers, on which rest simple quadripart.i.te vaults. The north and south walls are each pierced with seven large windows. No books are visible. They are contained in plain wooden presses 7 feet high and 2 feet deep, set round the piers, and against the walls between the windows. The arrangement of these presses will be understood from the general view (fig. 16), and from the view of a single press open (fig. 17).

In the decoration, with which every portion of the walls and vaults is covered, Roman methods are reproduced, but with a difference. The great writers of antiquity are conspicuous by their absence; but the development of the human race is commemorated by the presence of those to whom the invention of letters is traditionally ascribed; the walls are covered with frescoes representing the foundation of the great libraries which instructed the world, and the a.s.semblies of the Councils which established the Church; the vaults record the benefits conferred on Rome by Sixtus V., in a series of historical views, one above each window; and over these again are stately figures, each embodying some sacred abstraction--"Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers"--with angels swinging censers, and graceful nymphs, and laughing satyrs--a strange combination of paganism and Christianity--amid wreaths of flowers, and arabesques twining round the groups and over every vacant s.p.a.ce, partly framing, partly hiding, the heraldic devices which commemorate Sixtus and his family:--a web of lovely forms and brilliant colours, combined in an intricate and yet orderly confusion.

It may be questioned whether such a room as this was ever intended for study. The marble floor, the gorgeous decoration, the absence of all appliances for work in the shape of desks, tables, chairs, suggest a place for show rather than for use. The great libraries of the Augustan age, on the other hand, seem, so far as we can judge, to have been used as meeting-places and reading-rooms for learned and unlearned alike. In general arrangement and appearance, however, the Vatican Library must closely resemble its imperial predecessors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 17. A single press in the Vatican Library, open.

From a photograph.]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon_, 2 vols., 8vo. Lond.

1853. Vol. II., p. 343.

[2] Ezra, vi. I.

[3] Mr Layard gives a view of the interior of one of these rooms (p. 345) after it had been cleared of rubbish.

[4] _La Bibliotheque du Palais de Ninive_, par M. Joachim Menant. 8vo.

Paris, 1880, p. 32.

[5] The two languages are the ancient Sumerian and the more modern a.s.syrian.

[6] Athenaeus, Book 1., Chap. 4.

[7] _Noct. Att._ Book VII., Chap. 17. Libros Athenis disciplinarum liberalium publice ad legendum praebendos primus posuisse dicitur Pisistratus tyrannus.

[8] Xenophon, _Memorabilia_, Book IV., Chap. 2.

[9] Aristoph. _Ranae_, 1407-1410, translated by J. H. Frere. The pa.s.sage has been quoted by Castellani, _Biblioteche nell' Antichita_, 8vo., Bologna, 1884, pp. 7, 8, and many others.

[10] Strabo, ed. Kramer, Berlin, 8vo., 1852, Book XIII., Chap. I, -- 54.

[Greek: protos hon hismen synagagon biblia, kai didaxas tous en Aigypto basileas bibliothekes syntaxin.]

[11] Book XIII., Chap. 4, -- 2.

[12] Book XVII., Chap. 1, -- 8. [Greek: ton de basileion meros esti kai to Mouseion, echon peripaton kai exedran kai oikon megan, en ps to sussition ton metechonton tou Mouseion philologon andron esti de te sunodo taute kai chremata koina kai iereus o epi to Monseio, tetagmenos tote men upo ton Basileon nun d upo Kaisaros.]

[13] One of the anonymous lives of Apollonius Rhodius states that he presided over the Museum Libraries ([Greek: ton bibliothekon ton Mouseion]).

[14] Epiphanius, De Pond. et Mens., Chap. 12. [Greek: eti de usteron kai etera egeneto bibliotheke en to Serateio, mikrotera tes protes, etis thugater onomasthe autes.]

[15] Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, Book XXII., Chap. 16, -- 12. Atriis columnariis amplissimis et spirantibus signorum figmentis ita est exornatum, ut post Capitolium quo se venerabilis Roma in aeternum attollit, nihil orbis terrarum ambitiosius cernat. See also Aphthonius, _Progymn._ C. XII. ed.

Walz, _Rhetores Graeci_, i. 106.

[16] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, Book V., Chap. 30. Longeque clarissimum Asiae Pergamum.

[17] Strabo, Book XIII., Chap. 4, -- 2. After recounting the successful policy of Eumenes II. towards the Romans, he proceeds: [Greek: kateskenase de ontos ten polin, kai to Nikephorion alsei katephuteuse, kai anathemata kai bibliothekas kai ten epi tosonde katoikian tou Pergamon ten nun ousan ekeinos prosephilokalese].

[18] _De Architectura_, Book VII., Praefatio. The pa.s.sage is quoted in the next note.

[19] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, Book XIII., Chap. 11. Mox aemulatione circa bibliothecas regum Ptolemaei et Eumenis, supprimente chartas Ptolemaeo, idem Varro membranas Pergami tradidit repertas. Vitruvius, on the other hand (_ut supra_) makes Ptolemy found the library at Alexandria as a rival to that at Pergamon. Reges Attalici magnis philologiae dulcedinibus inducti c.u.m egregiam bibliothecam Pergami ad communem delectationem inst.i.tuissent, tune item Ptolemaeus, infinito zelo cupiditatisque incitatus studio, non minoribus industriis ad eundem modum contenderat Alexandriae comparare.

[20] Plutarch, _Antonius_, Chap. 57. To a list of accusations against Antony for his subservience to Cleopatra, is added the fact: [Greek: charisasthai men aute tas ek Pergamon bibliothekas, en ais eikosi muriades biblon aplon esan].

[21] _Altertumer von Pergamon_, Fol., Berlin, 1885, Band 11. Das Heiligtum der Athena Polias Nikephoros, von Richard Bohn. The ground-plan (fig. 2) is reduced from Plate III. in that volume.

[22] _Die Pergamenische Bibliothek._ Sitzungsberichte der Konigl. Preuss.

Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin, 1884, II. 1259-1270.

[23] In my first lecture as Sandars Reader at Cambridge in the Lent Term, 1900, I pointed out that this enclosure was of about the same size as Nevile's Court at Trinity College, if to the central area there we add the width of one of the cloisters; and that the temple of Athena was of exactly the same width as the Hall, but about 15 feet shorter. Nevile's Court is 230 feet long from the inside of the pillars supporting the Library to the wall of the Hall; and it has a mean breadth of 137 feet. If the width of the cloister, 20 feet, be added to this, we get 157 feet in lieu of the 162 feet at Pergamon.

[24] Now in the Royal Museum, Berlin.

[25] Similar sockets have been discovered in the walls of the chambers connected with the Stoa of King Attalus at Athens. These chambers are thought to have been shops, and the sockets to have supported shelves on which wares were exposed for sale. Conze, ut supra, p. 1260; Adler, _Die Stoa des Konigs Attalos zu Athen_, Berlin, 1874; Murray's _Handbook for Greece_, ed. 1884, 1. p. 255.

[26] Suetonius, _Caesar_, Chap. 44.

[27] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, Book VII., Chap. 30; Book x.x.xV., Chap. 2.

[28] Suetonius, _Augustus_, Chap. 29.