Julian the Apostate (A.D. 363) founded libraries of a different character, upon which he inscribed the words: "Some love horses, some birds, others wild beasts, but from boyhood I have been possessed with the desire of acquiring and owning books." Constantine the Great founded (A.n. 336) a library at Constantinople, which at his death is said to have contained 6000 volumes; it grew under Julian and Theo dosius the Younger to 120.000 volumes. ln it was deposited the only authentic copy of the pro ceedings of the Council of Nice, and among its curiosities were a 315. of Homer, one hundred and twenty feet in length, written in letters of gold on serpents' skin, and a copy of the Pour Gospels bound in plates of gold weighing fifteen pounds and enriched with precious stones. This library was destroyed by fire under Zeno. A later collection, extending to 33.000 volumes, is said to have been destroyed by Leo III., the icon oclast,' A.D. 730. The triple fire at the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders. in 1203, eclipsed all previous ones in destructiveness. Two hundred and fifty years later came the final dis aster of the Ottoman conquest. Despite all these losses, possibly through some of them, the great libraries of Europe owe to Constantinople some of their choicest treasures.
Through the :Middle Ages books and learning were preserved by the monasteries, especially those of the Benedictines, beginning at Monte Cassino, A.D. 530. Each Benedictine house in stituted first a library, then the scriptorium or writing-room, where MSS. were copied for sale or exchange, and lastly the school, open to all who desired instruction. Many famous HO:tries of Europe had their nuclei in these Benedictine collections. Notable among these are the li braries of Monte-Cassino, Fleury on the Loire (c.650), Corbie (662). Hersfeld, Ratishon, Corvei (q.v.). Reichenau (724). Fulda (744), Saint Gall (820). and Clugny (910).
England is indebted to the Benedictines for her earliest library, that of Christ Church, Canterbury (596), and for Saint Peter's of York. Saint Cuthbert's at Durham. and those at Peterborough. Wearmouth (647), Bury Saint Edmunds, Reading, and Saint Albans. The Franciscans had a considerable library at Oxford, to which Adam de Muriseo left his hooks, 1253. The Bodleian was opened iii 1602. The library of the University of Cambridge dates from 1475. Charlemagne established libraries in his cloister schools at Aix-la-Chapelle and Tours. to which Alcuin brought the training he had secured at Saint Mary's. in York, England.
With the fourteenth century came the estab lishment in Germany of the university' libraries, at Prague (1348). Heidelberg (1386), Leipzig
(1409) ; and the first public town libraries, the outcome of humanism, at Ratishon (1430), Vienna (1440, opened to the public in 1575), and Frankfort (1484). The suppression of the monasteries after the Reformation gave an im pulse to the foundation of the royal and town libraries. Many important ones were es tablished in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen turies: Gottingen ( 1737 ) , Bonn ( 1818 ) , Strass burg, dating back to 1566, ph nix-1uke from the ashes of the siege of 1870. All the universities of Germany have notable libraries.
Spain with its University of Palencia (1212) and of Salamanca, a few years later, takes a very early place in library history. The National Library at Madrid owns the Columbus Letter in Spanish among its rarities.
The famed Corrina, established by Matthias Corvinus (c. 1460), had a rapid growth, but its treasures were dispersed by the Turks in 1527, and scattered specimens are to be found in more than thirty of the libraries of Europe. The Royal Library at Copenhagen. dating from 1479, is the largest of Scandinavian libraries, is specially strong in Icelandic literature, and has a fine collection of Persian MSS.
The first public library in Italy was founded at Florence, in 1437, on a bequest by Niccoli, the Florentine Socrates, of his own collection of SOO MSS. Cosmo de' Medici erected a building for it in 1441. and later, under his grandson, Lorenzo de' Medici. it acquired the name of Laurentian Library. With the expulsion of the _Medici at the close of the fifteenth century the collection passed into the possesion of a monastery. Later Leo X. bought it, and in 1521 Cardinal Giulio de' Medici restored it to the city and housed it in a building erected by :Michelangelo. Nicholas V. founded the Vatican Library in 1447 and left it at his death enriched with 9000 :MSS. In 1588 its present building was erected by Sixtus V. In I65S the famous 'Urbino Library was acquired for it. Queen Christina of Sweden enriched it with a splendid collection of MSS. and books. In 1746 the Ottobuoni collection of 3862 German and Latin MSS. was added. Italy is exceedingly rich in libraries of historical interest; her university libraries contain many MSS. and in cunabula. Among the famous collections may be named the Ambrosian Library (q.v.) at Milan, founded in 1602; the Casanata. at Rome; the National Central, at Florence, formed by the union of the well-known Magliabechiana and Palatina; and the National of Saint Mark, at Venice. The archives of Venice, complete for more than ten centuries, and numbering fifteen million documents, are housed under a single roof.