Celebrating Father Biondi's Anniversary - Saint Louis University

MiCrOFiLM reADerS in SLU’S VATiCAn FiLM LibrAry
SCHolARly SCRAmble
When the Vatican Library in rome
announced during the summer that it
was closing for a three-year renovation,
scholars panicked at the prospect of being cut
off from their crucial research sources.
The Vatican apologized for the short notice, but
it said the decision was unavoidable. The wing
of the 16th-century building where the library
and reading rooms are located is sagging due
to age and the sheer weight of the books and
manuscripts.
Luckily for scholars and for Saint Louis
University, about half of the Vatican Library’s
collection is on microfilm in the University’s
Vatican Film Library (VFL). Ambrogio Piazzoni,
vice prefect of the Vatican Library in rome, said
he is referring scholars to Saint Louis University
to pursue their research during the shutdown.
“A lot of people plan their research agenda
several years in advance,” said Dr. Thomas
Madden, director of SLU’s Center for Medieval
and renaissance Studies. “if they’re applying
for grants or students are writing dissertations
that require documents found in rome and the
materials are no longer available to them, the
only other place in the world where they are
available is here at SLU.”
Dr. gregory Pass, director of the VFL, said he
already has had a number of inquiries from
researchers who had planned to study at the
Vatican and needed to rearrange their plans.
He said applications for VFL fellowships are
up noticeably, and efforts are under way to
increase the number of fellowships offered to
accommodate additional scholars. Pass and the
staff of the VFL are preparing for the anticipated
influx of scholars by making the collection more
accessible and by expanding its Web site.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for us to draw
greater attention to our collection and to seek
outside funding that could help us add to our
already significant holdings,” Pass said.
{captions}
Gavitt said he soon realized that Special Collections could be a wonderful teaching tool as
well. He regularly brings his students to the library for tours and lectures to help them appreciate
the importance of using primary sources in research.
“It amazes students to have these books at their fingertips,” he said. “When they touch a
piece of animal skin that someone wrote on more than 600 years ago, there’s a sense of awe. It
awakens them from their dogmatic slumber and inspires fresh thought.
“I also believe that it’s one thing for students to read what historians have said about a
particular work, but to see that original work and to interpret it for themselves teaches critical
thinking in a way nothing else can.”
Treasures in Microfilm
Rare books and manuscripts are only one part of Special Collections. The department also
includes the University Archives, which serves as SLU’s memory — documenting its history
from before its founding in 1818 to the present with a wide variety of materials including official
records, photographs, publications and personal papers (notably the archives of the late
University Professor Walter J. Ong, S.J.).
Also under the Special Collections umbrella is the Knights of Columbus Vatican Film Library
(VFL), an unparalleled resource for scholars in the United States.
The roots of the VFL go back to the early 1950s, when Lowrie J. Daly, S.J., then a 37-yearold
associate professor of medieval history, proposed the University seek permission to make
microfilm copies of rare and ancient manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (Vatican
Library) in Rome to facilitate research by scholars in the Western hemisphere.
The Vatican Library possesses one of the most important collections of Medieval and Renaissance
manuscripts in the world — containing some 75,000 codices representing just about
every aspect of the Western European intellectual and artistic experience.
Pope Pius XII granted permission for the project. And, with generous financial support from
the Knights of Columbus, Daly headed to Rome. He oversaw a team of Italian technicians as
they captured thousands of high-quality images of the manuscripts.
Nearly every month from 1951 to 1957, the team sent back to SLU microfilm reels containing
roughly 1,000 manuscripts.
“It was a remarkable project,” Pass said. “Before this time, microfilm was limited largely to
military or industrial purposes. The impact of using microfilm on such a large scale for this
project, capturing 12 million manuscript pages, was in some ways comparable to the application
of computing technology to the humanities over the past 10 to 15 years.”
Big Draw
{on page 16} Llangattock Breviary (Ferrara, 1441–48), St. Louis, Saint Louis
University Library, MS 2e
{a} {B} {C}
When the VFL opened in 1953 in DuBourg Hall, scholars traveled from throughout the world
to see the microfilmed treasures. They still do.
“We often have European scholars visiting, even some from Italy, who find it easier to work
with our resources than with the originals in the Vatican Library. This is partly because of the
high demand on the Vatican Library’s limited reading space, but also because of the limited
{a} Aegidius gutbier, Novum domini nostri Jesu Christi Testamentum Syriacè
(Hamburg, 1664), bound with Lexicon Syriacum (Hamburg, 1667) and
Notae criticae in Novum Testamentum (Hamburg, 1667)
number of manuscripts that scholars are allowed to consult in a single day,” Pass said. “We’re
preparing for an even greater influx of scholars with the temporary closing of the Vatican Library
in Rome.” (See sidebar on page 18.)
The VFL is unique to SLU and was the catalyst for construction of Pius XII Memorial Library.
Although the initial microfilming project ended in 1957, the VFL did not stop acquiring
material. It continues to assemble a comprehensive reference collection of books, serials, microforms,
electronic materials and other media in all areas of manuscript studies — illumination,
paleography, codicology, book production, library history, etc. It now has more than 37,000
manuscripts on microfilm — slightly better than half of the Vatican’s collection.
Among the most significant holdings are:
Codex Vaticanus, one of the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Bible written in Greek sometime
during the middle of the 4th century.
Vergilius Romanus (The Roman Virgil), produced between the 5th and 6th centuries. It is
one of the oldest surviving copies of the works of Virgil and one of few surviving examples
of Roman miniature painting.
Commentaries written in the hand of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Poetry written in the hand of Petrarch, the famous Italian scholar, poet and Renaissance
humanist.
Sunspot observations by Galileo.
Greater Access
The VFL hosts a fellowship program (another is offered by SLU’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance
Studies) and an annual manuscripts conference to help achieve its mission of making
its abundant resources available to scholars. For the past 50 years, it has edited and published
Manuscripta, a scholarly journal devoted to research on medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.
It is the only journal of its kind in North America.
Two years ago, Special Collections hired its first rare book cataloguer to make the collections
more accessible through rare book records input as part of the University libraries’ online catalogue.
As a result, the number of rare book queries from researchers worldwide has increased
substantially. The recent addition of a rare books librarian will further expand knowledge of
the collections and the ability to assist patrons.
All of this activity fits with the University libraries’ ambitious five-year strategic plan,
which includes for Special Collections expanding its reading room, creating climate-controlled
storage areas, increasing acquisitions budgets and providing digital access to its
materials. But while digitization allows wider access, University Archivist John Waide believes
that nothing beats the real thing.
“Vision is just one of our senses,” said Waide, as he holds a journal handwritten in the 1850s
by Pierre-Jean DeSmet, S.J. “We also have touch and smell. Holding this book is a total sensory
experience. I’m not the first reader. I’m sharing it with someone who lived 100 years before me.
You can’t fully appreciate that unless you hold the book in your hands. These are true treasures
on our campus.”
meSSAge fRom HiS HolineSS pope piuS Xii
January 2, 1953
To Our beloved Son
Paul C. reinert, S. J.
President of Saint Louis University
it is with sincere pleasure that We reply to
your letter, beloved son, thanking Us for the
extraordinary permission granted to Saint
Louis University, of which you are the worthy
President, to make microfilm copies of extensive
portions of the Vatican Library. With pleasure,
We say, because We are gratified to learn
from your letter of your further plan that these
priceless treasures, the wealth of centuries of
scholarship and learning, are to find a fitting
home in a new and ample university library,
which will thus become a center for scholars
throughout your vast land. Such a plan strikes
a sympathetic chord in Our own heart, intent as
We are, and as the Church has always been, on
fostering knowledge and wisdom.
Heartily then do We approve your plan,
beloved son, with the hope that you and
your colleagues will find many who are ready
and eager to co-operate in an enterprise
so advantageous to the cause of Catholic
culture in America. We are happy to note that
Our beloved sons, the knights of Columbus,
have generously made possible an important
step towards the realization of your plan, by
defraying the expenses of the microfilming. May
this be a bright omen of the final and happy
consummation of your dream, a university
library which will be a spacious temple of
learning, a storehouse of the good, the true, the
beautiful. Willingly then do We accede to your
filial request that this new library be designated
the “Pius Xii Memorial Library.”
As an earnest of abundant heavenly blessings
on this important work, We impart to you,
beloved son, to your benefactors, your faculty
and your students, the Apostolic benediction.
{B} Athanasius kircher, China Monumentis (Antwerp, 1667), frontispiece {C} Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (new york: Charles L. Webster
and Company, 1885)
18 UNIVERSITAS www.slu.edu UNIVERSITAS FALL 2007 19