The Intellectual Interests Reflected in Libraries of the Fourteenth and ...

VOLUME VII, NUMBER 3 JUNE, 1946
THE INTELLECTUAL INTERESTS REFLECTED IN
LIBRARIES OF THE FOURTEENTH AND
FIFTEENTH CENTURIES
BY PEARL KIBRE
Libraries and bibliophiles belong to no particular time or place.
Yet the chronological period covered by what is commonly termed
the Renaissance, that is roughly the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
and more particularly the fifteenth century, saw a great
increase in the number of private or individual collectors of books.1
Theodor Gottlieb who published a great many of the catalogues of
medieval and renaissance libraries lists some two hundred and
nineteen for the fifteenth century, and one hundred and fourteen
for the fourteenth, as against sixty for the thirteenth, seventy for
the twelfth, and forty-three for the eleventh century.2 Although
these numbers are by no means complete and are particularly inadequate
for the Italian libraries of the fifteenth century,3 they do
1 Cf. D. Giuseppe Zippel, Nicol& Niccoli (Firenze, 1890), 41; C. Frati, Dizionario
bio-bibliografico dei bibliotecari e bibliofili italiani dal sec. XIV al XIX (Firenze,
1933).
2 Theodor Gottlieb, Ueber mittelalterliche Bibliotheken (Leipzig, 1890), has of
course made greater use of German sources than of any other. From his lists the
approximate numbers for each country, according to centuries may be summarized
as follows: Germanies: about 64 for the 15th, 34 for the 14th, 22 each for the 11th
and 13th centuries; 30 for the 12th, 6 for the 10th, and 18 for the 9th century. For
France there are 40 for the 15th, 29 each for the 14th and 12th centuries, 18 for the
13th, 14 for the 11th, 5 for the 10th, and 4 for the 9th century. The case is much the
same for Italy although the proportion of 15th century libraries is much greater:
65 for the 15th, 23 for the 14th, 11 for the 13th, 6 for the 12th, 4 for the 11th, 2 for
the 10th, and none for the 9th century. For British libraries, there are 27 for the
15th, 23 for the 14th, 6 for the 13th, 5 for the 12th, none for the 11th, 2 for the 10th,
and none for the 9th century. Of the other countries, the Netherlands including
Belgium and Holland had 14 for the 15th century, with only 4 each for the 12th and
14th centuries, 1 each for the 13th and 10th, 2 for the 11th. Spain and Portugal
according to Gottlieb's list had 9 for the 15th century, 3 for the 14th, 2 for the 13th,
4 for the 12th, and one each for the 9th and 10th centuries.
3 Several additional libraries are listed by Gustavus Becker, Catalogi bibliothecarum
antiqui, Bonn 1885. R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci
ne/secoli XIV e XV, (Biblioteca storica del rinascimento, II, [Firenze, 1905], especially
chapter XI, and Nuove Ricerche, toc. cit. V, [1914], adds a number of Italian
libraries that are omitted by both Gottlieb and Becker. See also Carlo Frati, Dizio-
257
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