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

FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURY LIBRARIES 277
by Vespasiano, the fifteenth century bookseller ;97 as well as in the
books owned by Martin of Aragon,98 and in the well-stocked collection
of the Visconti-Sforza at Pavia,99 and in many others, where
the Bible, Books of Hours, and other devotional and theological
tracts formed the nucleus and frequently the most substantial part
of the library. Especially worthy of note too in these libraries are
the vernacular translations of the Bible.'00
This numerical prominence of the Bible and of theological writings
in the fifteenth century, which has already been demonstrated
in my account of the library of Pico della Mirandola, is further
emphasized by the fact that about half of the total output of the
incunabula presses was in this field.'0' It is also reflected, as one
might perhaps expect, in the collection of Nicholas of Cusa, half
of whose books were on religious subjects; and in that of Cardinal
Bessarion. Of the latter's five hundred Greek codices, thirty-six
contained texts of the Bible and its commentaries and some one
hundred and sixty-five pertained to the works of the church fathers,
theologians, church councils, and canon law. Similarly in the Latin
section, there were twenty-four texts and commentaries of the
Bible, one hundred and eight books pertaining to the church
fathers, theologians, church councils, and canon law.'02 The re-
97 Ramon D'Alos, "Documenti per la storia delle biblioteca d'Alfonso il Magnanimo,"
Miscellanea Fr. Ehrle, V (1924), 392 ff.; Vespasiano, Vite, I (Coll. di
opere inedite o rare, no. 68), 65. Vespasiano lists works that Alfonso had had translated
from Greek, loc. cit., 97-98. See also E. Gonzalez Hurtebise, "Inventario de
los bienes muebles de Alfonso V de Aragon, Como infante y como rey (1412-1424),"
Anuari, Institut d'Estudis Catalans (Barcelona, 1907), 182 ff. Alfonso was ruler of
seven kingdoms, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Isles, Sicily, Sardinia and
Corsica, and Naples.
98J. Masso Torrents, "Inventari dels bens mobles del Rey Marti d'Arago,"
Revue hispanique, XII (1905), 414, 416, 417, etc.
99 G. Mazzatinti, "Inventario della biblioteca Visconteo-Sforzesea," Giornale
storico della lett. ital. (Torino), I (1883), 43 ff.; [Girolamo d'Adda], Libreria Visconteo-Sforzesca
del Castello di Pavia.
100 Cf. Delisle, Cabinet, III, 170-94; Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici (1905),
200; A. de Hevesy, La bibliothe'que du roi Matthias Corvin, 87, "Bible hongroise."
Cf. S. Berger, "Nouvelles recherches sur les Bibles Provengales et Catalanes," Romania,
XIX (1890), 505-561; also his "Les Bibles Provengales et Vaudoises," loc.
cit., XVIII, 353.
101 P. Kibre, op. cit., chap. VI; Robert Steele, "What fifteenth-century books
are about," Trans. of the Bibliographical Society, The Library, 2nd series, no. 16,
vol. IV (1903), 337-38.
102 H. Omont, in Revue des bibliotheqques, IV (1894), 182.
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