The Vatican Museums library was established in 1938 with the aim of collecting books, catalogues and general texts to provide the first source of modern scientific support to the curators of the departments of the Vatican Museums.
The present collection of texts was started with a small donation by the Apostolic Vatican Library of approximately one thousand volumes which are currently held in permanent storage. The first donation from a private family was made in 1934 by the Marquis Gugliemi Vulci to Pope Pius XI and consisted of a group of books concerning important Etruscan antiquities and relics.
Over the years the VM Library has grown in both the quantity of books in their collection as well as the range of their topics of study. They are currently collecting documents discussing the works of art and monuments which are in the Vatican’s possession. This research will help construct the biographies of several artists as well as provide histories of the restoration and conservation of Vatican pieces. Since its creation, the library has held many valuable donations, known for both their rarity and their utility.
Among the most famous and important donations are a large collection of volumes which entered the archive after the Ethnological Missionary Exhibition of 1925. At the end of this exhibition, which ran from 1926-1927, these texts, along with ethnological objects from all over the world, were acquired by the Vatican Museums. These volumes were combined with the archives of the magazine "Anthropos" and stored under the direction of the “Verbiti” Divine Word Fathers who were called to serve as administrators of the Missionary Museum. The collection was housed in the Lateran Palace for many years but was later transferred to the Vatican Museums in the 1970s allowing for the opening of the Missionary Ethnological Museum.
When the Museums began building their renowned Contemporary Art collections, they also began to acquire texts on the subject. Strongly supported by Pope Paul VI, these volumes are the legacy of Msgr. Pasquale Macchi, his private secretary, as well as gifts from artists and collectors. Today, the collection contains approximately 18,000 volumes, about 200 of which are considered to be rare.
In 2005-2006 the Contemporary Art department received the valuable collection of Prof. Bruno Mantura, leading art historian and emblematic figure of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome, where he worked for over 20 years.
This large collection is now catalogued thanks to Dr. Claudia Lazzerini. She worked into two stages. The first step consisted of finding the volumes and ensuring that each one had an inventory number. The second step involved the insertion and verification of the collection’s data in an electronic format. |
Formed during the first half
of the XVIII century, the Vatican Collection of Etruscan
Vases was and continues to be one of the most interesting
for scholars and archaeologists to study. It was this
wide spread interest in the budding science of archaeology
that in 1734, a painter named Bartolomeo Poli set
about drawing all the Etruscan vases found in the
Vatican collection.
Soon after Poli finished his work,
Anton Francesco Gori and Giovanni Passeri wanted to
use these pictures in their first illustrated edition
of Etruscan vase painting which set out to document
the development of this art form. Later on, in1787,
Vincenzo Monaldini printed and published “Series
of 300 etched drawings representing Estruscan Vases”,
one of the first illustrated editions of ancient objects.
Thus the volumes that you have helped
us restore are the first and most historically valuable
volumes on the theme. The famous German scholar Winckelmann
attests that “the first collection ever done
of illustrated Etruscan Vases is the one of the Vatican
Library”
This rare volume is a monumental
work because all its pages are illustrated individually.
The volume won Passeri great fame and thus the grand
Duke of Tuscany granted him the official recognition
and interesting although somewhat plane honorary title
of official “antique collector”.
The very first step of this restoration consisted
in an overall cleaning of the volumes, both cover
and pages. All three volumes had a damaged spine which
was completely repaired using the art of 18th century
binding procedures. The paper of the covers was changed
using a handmade decorated paper from an artisan in
Bologna who worked exclusively for this book and faithfully
imitated the original cover. The interior pages, which
were deteriorated are now cleaned and reinforced with
Japanese paper. The incisions of Etruscan vases which
were damaged by oxidation, were treated with special
techniques to clean the oxidated portions (de-acidification).
All the edges were reinforced and all the pages perfectly
fixed.
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VATICAN
MUSEUMS' LIBRARY
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