Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
The Vatican Library is the library that the Holy See held at the Vatican, from the fifteenth century. It has one of the collections of ancient books and rare books of the most important in the world, dating back to the first century AD. Tomaso Parentucelli (Pope Nicholas VI) was the first to conceive the idea of a modern Library, creating a substantial collection of ancient manuscripts and made it free, in 1451, for the consultation to scholars in a Vatican hall. Increased by 350 codes from the Avignonese Library to 1200, the collection formed the first nucleus of the future Library. The official establishment of the Vatican Library dates back to Pope Sixtus IV (1475). A century later, the initial site proved inadequate to contain all of the material increased with new acquisitions and with the advent of printed books. Thus, between 1587 and 1589, Domenico Fontana designed a new building. In the eighteenth century were added to the collections of art and antiques, as the Medal (1738), continuing with three collections of objects from Christian antiquity, from the Roman catacombs. Among the most famous pieces, the "Codex Vaticanus", the oldest complete manuscript of the Bible.
Info:
The access is permitted only to teachers and university researchers.
Since 1985, there is an on-line catalog.
