The Vatican Apostolic Library has acquired an important manuscript: in recent weeks, at Hugo Wetscherek's “Inlibris” bookshop in Vienna, it was able to purchase a codex that originally belonged to a collection preserved there, that of the Latin Palatines. The sale of the volume at the antiquarian bookshop was brought to the attention of the director of the Heidelberg University Library, Dr. Jochen Apel, who reported it to the Prefect of the Vatican Library, Don Mauro Mantovani, SDB.
A paper manuscript of 115 leaves (plus two flyleaves) containing five Lives of Saints (Ciriaco, Gallo, Mauro Abbot, Goar, Burcardo Bishop of Worms) and the Historia Langobardorum by Paolo Diacono; the codex is notable for the rarity of the text it preserves concerning the lives of the saints. The work of several copyists, it was produced in Germany – probably in Worms, which seems to explain the choice of hagiographic texts – at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Of the binding, dated 1556, the two covers with the portrait of the Elector Palatine Ottheinrich are preserved.
The significance of the acquisition is due primarily to the fact that the codex is identifiable as the one marked Pal. lat. 851 in the Vatican Library, which was missing, along with others, from the 1798 revision. It arrived there in 1623, after a challenging journey coordinated by Leone Allacci, Scriptor Graecus of the Vatican Library, together with the others from the Palatine Library, donated by Maximilian I of Bavaria to Pope Gregory XV as a sign of gratitude for the support received during the Thirty Years’ War. The deed of donation, the reasons for it, and the preparation of the spaces to house it are commemorated by an inscription still visible in the Gallery of Urban VIII, now in the Vatican Museums.
The library history of the Palatine books, from their arrival in the Vatican to their final arrangement, can be reconstructed through the inventories, on the basis of which it is also possible to confirm the identification of Pal. lat. 851. Furthermore, on the flyleaves, various signatures and ex libris attest to the transfers and sales between various collectors from the end of the eighteenth century to the present day (Frederick North, Fifth Earl of Guilford, Sir Thomas Phillips, Maurice Burrus).
This culturally and scientifically important operation was completed in just a few days thanks to the prompt, coordinated and professional work of all those involved, from Heidelberg Universitätsbibliothek, the Vatican Library and the “Inlibris” bookshop, motivated by the common goal of making the manuscript available to scholars in a library, and in particular in the library that holds the collection to which the manuscript belongs.
Cooperation between the German and Vatican libraries is not new, but has been constantly renewed over time through celebrations and scientific projects: from the initiative of Leo XIII, who in 1886, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University of that city, sent the first specially published Palatine catalogues to Heidelberg as a gift, to the celebrations 100 years later, when a large number of Vatican volumes were loaned for display in an exhibition at the Heiliggeistkirche, until 2010, when the Vatican Library launched its manuscript digitization campaign (digi.vatlib.it). The pilot project was shared with the Heidelberg University Library (Bibliotheca Palatina – digital: https://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/de/bpd/index.html), with the aim of protecting these precious testimonies of the past, making them even more accessible in the present and preserving them for the future. Stories that continue to come together in the service provided for humanity by the Vatican Library.
For contacts, interviews and clarifications: Dr. CLAUDIA MONTUSCHI, Scriptor Latinus, Head of the Manuscripts Department of the Vatican Apostolic Library (c.montuschi@vatlib.it)
