They browse them while fluttering happy in the blue. They love books, the angels frescoed on the ceiling of the writers’ room in the Vatican Apostolic Library. And, confirming the help of Jorge Luis Borges (“I have always imagined paradise as a kind of library”), in the same room a plaque of Pope Sisto V threats to excommunication who steals or damages books. Promise of paradise and threat of hell, therefore, in the name of manuscripts, printed paper, coins and medals in this exclusive place that Popes and cardinals have loved and enriched over the centuries. In the frescoed rooms, in the air -conditioned bunker, in deposits, between ancient wooden bookcases and workshops with sophisticated restoration and digitization systems, about two million printed, ancient and modern volumes are preserved, and 80 thousand manuscripts. “By now 30 thousand manuscripts have already been entirely digitized and all the images, which are millions, are at complete disposal in the digital library, on our site, which can be consulted directly and freely”, explains Don Mauro Mantovani, the prefect of the library. In the same building, which overlooks the courtyard of the Belvedere designed by the Bramante, there are the Vatican Apostolic Library and Apostolic Archive: “Two sister institutions, which constantly collaborate, and with a common history, which has its roots at the time when the Holy See began to methodically collect the documents that constitute a unique historical and cultural heritage, at the service of the Church and beyond”, says Don Mantovani. The current location was wanted Pope Sixtus V (to the century Felice Peretti) who, at the end of the 16th century, had it built by cutting the courtyard in two, because the old library, which was located in the Apostolic Palace, was no longer able to accommodate the new collections …
Read the complete story of the Vatican Apostolic Library on the number of BELIEVE In distribution in newsstands and religious bookstores from Thursday 21 August and in the parishes from Saturday 23 August. Or buy a digital copy www.edicolasanpaolo.it
(Photo above: Tommaso Ausili/)
