“Shhh!”
“Shhh!” We’re inside the Pope’s Apostolic Library and everyone is
invited to be quiet.
We turn our heads from one side of the frescoed
reading room to the other to see disgruntled scholars looking up from
their work as we walk in.
Our video guide whisks us back through space
and time, explaining how from verbal evolution, man first invented the
written word… and how, for centuries, to protect and preserve the
world’s rich, evolving patrimony of handwritten tomes and printed
volumes, the Vatican has kept ahead of the times, employing some of the
most technically advanced instruments known to man.
A state of
the art microchip system ensures no volume can get lost amid the mile
after mile of bookshelves – or worse, pilfered from the centuries’ old
institution.
The finest photographic equipment and digital scanners not
yet on the market record and reproduce the tiniest details of
manuscripts dating back to the 3rd or 4th century.
But
no – we’re not really inside the Papal Library – only accredited
scholars and qualified students can get in there. We’re inside the next
best thing: a physical room in a virtual world - recreating the
Vatican Library’s 16th c. frescoed Sistine Hall reading room,
complete with wooden tables, chairs and lecterns.
Here, like real
scholars, we can slip on white gloves and examine exact replicas of
ancient illustrated manuscripts on subjects that vary from the
nutritional and therapeutic properties of herbs, to religious texts
including one of the world’s oldest bibles – the fourth century Codex
Vaticanus B, geographical maps and a guide to falconry.
These are
only a sampling of the Library’s vast collection of some 150,000
manuscripts and more than 1.5 million printed books.
In fact, if you
were to line up all the institution’s books in a row, they’d lead you to
Rome’s Fiumicino Airport and back – a trip covering some 60 kilometers!
The Library also possesses some 1300 early block print volumes
and one of the world’s most important collections of coins and
medallions numbering some 300,000.
We’re inside the first room in
this very special exhibit, celebrating the September reopening of the
Vatican Library after three years of restoration. It is open to
visitors in the Braccio Carlo Magno hall to the left of St. Peter’s
Square through January 31, 2011.
The exhibition is comprised of
several sections, including: History of the Library, Manuscripts,
Drawings and Paintings, Printed Volumes, Prints, Numismatics, Archival
Services, and Restoration and Photographic departments.
An audio tour
accompanies the visitor in one of five languages through a series of
thematic exhibit rooms, many of which are enhanced by audiovisual
effects.
Among the items on display are important historical
manuscripts dating from the early Christian centuries to the modern era,
rare incunabula or block printed books where wood cuts were used to
print entire pages, hand illustrated manuscripts and drawings and prints
by master artists and a selection of rare coins and medals, some dating
to the time of Jesus himself – perhaps one is among the coins Judas
received for his betrayal?
But the collection also extends
beyond Europe to the Middle East and Asia, with a handsomely illustrated
XIII c. Arabic love story of Bayad and Riyad, and from Palestine: an
XI c. Melchite lectionary in Aramaic – the language Jesus spoke, and
from Burma: a XIX c Illustrated Life of Buddha.
Eighty percent
of the objects and texts on display are original manuscripts, volumes,
sketches and prints from some of the Europe’s most renowned artists from
the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
Here, you’ll find a first edition
volume of Piranesi’s Scenes of Rome, a self portrait by Gian Lorenzo
Bernini, and poetic verses and sketches by Michelangelo, not to mention a
bizarre work by Botticelli depicting scenes from the Divine Comedy.
Vatican
Library restorers are also present at the exhibit to explain how they
preserve and repair centuries’ old codices and torn or dog-eared pages,
damaged bindings and book covers.
SIC: VR/INT'L