Vatican Library

Highlights

Vatican City, October 3, 20088Print

The Art of Printing in European Culture in the Modern Period, 1450-1800

On November 8, 2007, the Rev. Msgr. Salvatore Nicolosi, Supernumerary Apostolic Protonotary, donated to the Vatican Library a precious collection of 172 volumes. The Catalogue Section has recently completed the description of these items, so that the relevant entries for books and coins will be available in the OPAC.

Msgr. Nicolosi was Professor of the History of Philosophy in various Universities, first at Siena, then at the Roman Universities "La Sapienza" and "Roma Tre" (emeritus from 1993); he also constantly held a chair at the Pontifical Lateran Universtiy (emeritus from 1994). He also held important administrative positions in the Faculties of Law and of Letters and Philosophy of the Universities where he taught. His very rich scientific production, which was the fruit of his study of decisive personalities and moments in the history of Western thought, is a witness to his efforts to find common ground between culture of secular inspiration and culture of religious inspiration.

The works included in the book collection which he donated to the Vatican Library constitute an important witness to the art of printing and to European culture in general for the period stretching from 1450 to 1800. Upon their arrival in the Catalogue Section of the Library, each volume received a bookplate with the inscription "Ex libris quos Salvator Nicolosi Bibliothecae Vaticanae dono dedit a.D. MMVII."
The collection includes, among other things, the works of Sallustius Crispus, published by Silber in Rome in 1490, with a hand-written dedicatory letter from Pomponio Leto to Augusto Maffei; the works of Lactantius and the Apologeticus of Tertullian, printed in Venice in 1509 (this is a reprint of the first book to be printed in Italy, which came from the press at Subiaco before 1470; Tertullian's Apologeticus was added in the "reimpressio"); Vergil (Publii Virgilii Maronis Mantuani, Bucolica, Georgica, Aeneis, opera et industria Io. A. Meyen, Venetiis, Apud Aldum, 1576, with an extensive commentary); the Commentarii di Gaio Giulio Cesare tradotti di latino in volgar lingua per Agostino Ortica, Venice, Aldus Manutius, 1547; another Aldine (Explanatio in [Ciceronis] orationes... Scholia Pauli Manutii by Asconio Pediano, 1563); Biblia Sacra Vulgatae editionis Sixti Quinti Pont. Max., published in Rome by the Tipografia Vaticana in 1593 (one of the rare remaining exemplars of the original edition of the Sixto-Clementine Bible, prepared by order of the Council of Trent in order to serve as the official text in theological disputes, typeset under Sixtus V, who personally followed it through the various stages of printing, and finally published under Clement VIII with the Bull of November 9, 1592). The collection has been distributed among the various "Raccolta Generale" series of the Vatican Library.

Besides his book collection, Msgr. Nicolosi also donated a numismatic collection including coins minted in the Western world from the sixth century B.C. to the twentieth century A.D., for a total of about 3,000 items: coins from classical Greece, ancient Rome, Byzantium, and from medieval, Renaissance and modern Italy, as well as papal coins and ones from various European states.