ITALY.
The library history of the kingdom of Italy has its roots in antiquity. Here was estab lished the first Western monastery, Monte Cassino whose library still exists. This was founded by Saint Benedict in 529. It was in Italy that Petrarch, Boccaccio, Poggio and their confreres began the search for manuscripts and objects of ancient art that initiated the Renais sance. As in Germany, another thing that en couraged the development of libraries was de velopment of the small states and free cities. The rulers of these, during the later medieval period and throughout the Renaissance, were often patrons of art and learning who loved books and found much delight in collecting them. Many of the modern Italian libraries originated in such collections, and in spite of numberless wars and vicissitudes of all kinds they still possess a great share of their original treasures. Italy was deprived of many rarities during the wars with the first French republic and Napoleon, but the majority were returned after the fall of the latter. The unification of Italy and the establishment of the present king dom resulted in the nationalization of the li braries, most of which passed under govern ment control. Successive laws have been en acted for the organization and administration of these biblioteca governati which are under direction of the Minister of Public Instruction, who has under him a Board of Library Control. Careful watch is made over the library treas ures. In 1875, 1,700 monastic libraries were confiscated by the state. These were trans ferred to the governmental libraries already in existence or new collections were formed (371 in 1875, 415 in 1878): The personnel of the libraries are government employees and are divided into the following classes: (1) libra rians; (2) keepers of manuscripts; (3) assist ants, cataloguers, etc.; (4) ushers, messengers, etc.
The national library of Italy is the Nazion ale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele, in Rome, founded 1875, and based on the collections of the Collegio Romano, or Jesuits' College. It has the copy privilege and contains many splen did collections, such as the Farfensi, the Sesso viani manuscripts of Santa Croce, Jerusalem, and much material on the history of Italy, par ticularly the period of the Renaissance. An
other important library in Rome is the Biblio teca Casanatense, founded by Cardinal Casanate in 1698. This contains 200,000 volumes, 2,000 incunabula, 5,000 manuscripts, many of them of the 8th to 10th centuries, and is rich in the literature of theology, law, economic, political and social sciences and history, particularly that of the Middle Ages. Among the other libraries of Rome may be mentioned the Biblioteca Uni versitaria Alessandrina called the Sapienza, founded by Alexander VII, in 1667, the Cossini and the Chiagi. The collections at Milan are perhaps next in importance to those of Rome, the largest being the Biblioteca Nazionale, or Braidense, founded in 1770 by Maria Theresa, who purchased the collections of the naturalist Haller consisting of 14,000 volumes and manu scripts. The collections have been greatly in creased by transfers from religious institutions and by public and private munificence. It con tains many interesting items, among the manu scripts of Dante, Galileo, Tasso and Manzoni. The collections number 259,680 volumes, 167,948 pamphlets, 1,834 manuscripts. There is an excellent catalogue in three parts, accession, author and subject, developed by Sacchi and Rossi. The classification system devised by Rossi for the Braidense has been adopted by other Italian libraries. More famous, even, than the Braidense is •the Biblioteca Ambrosi ana founded in 1609 by Cardinal Federico Borromeo, and based on his private collections. This is housed in an ancient conventual build ing adapted to the purposes of a library, and contains many bibliographic treasures, among them manuscripts of Petrarch and Laura, draw ings and manuscripts of Leonardo da Vinci and rare examples of early books. In 1879 it re ceived the library of Prof. C. Mensinger, ((Bib lioteca Europea," containing material on the history and linguistics of Europe. Cardinal Mai, the celebrated antiquarian, was librarian of the Ambrosiana for several years.