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{{Short description|Library in Verona, Veneto, Italy}}
{{Infobox library
| name        = Chapter Library of Verona
| image       = Biblioteca Capitolare in Verona.jpg
| caption     = The Chapter Library of Verona
|image_upright=1
|coordinates={{Coord|45|26|48.61|N|10|59|48.55|E|display=title}}
| established = 5th century CE
| location    = Piazza Duomo, 13, 37122, [[Verona]], [[Italy]]
| director    = Bruno Fasani
| website     = {{URL|https://www.bibliotecacapitolare.it/}}
}}

The '''Chapter Library of Verona''' ({{langx|it|Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona }}) is an Italian library, considered one of the world's oldest libraries in continuous function.<ref>{{cite web |title=History - Biblioteca Capitolare Verona |url=http://bibliotecacapitolare.org/en/discover/history/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210519231023/http://bibliotecacapitolare.org/en/discover/history/ |archive-date=19 May 2021 |access-date=20 May 2021 |website=Biblioteca Capitolare Verona}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Knoche |first=Michael |date=2019-11-04 |title=Legt das Pergament wieder in die Nische zurück |url=https://biblio.hypotheses.org/670 |access-date=2025-04-27 |website=Aus der Forschungsbibliothek Krekelborn |language=de |quote=Translation: Precise year dates are a construct, especially in the case of very old libraries. When a collection of books deserves to be called a library depends very much on the point of view of the observer. - Original in German: "Präzise Jahreszahlen sind besonders im Fall der sehr alten Bibliotheken ein Konstrukt. Wann eine Sammlung von Büchern den Namen Bibliothek verdient, hängt stark vom Gesichtspunkt des Betrachters ab."}}</ref>

== History ==
The Chapter Library of Verona is one of the oldest library in the world. Of the many metropolitan churches which formed collections of books for the use of the clergy in the two hundred years after [[Constantine the Great|Constantine]]'s adoption of [[Christianity]] in 312, only Verona has a continuous history to the present. In the fifth century it was one of the few important cities of the [[Western Roman Empire|Western Empire]], the favourite residence of the [[Ostrogoth]] King [[Theodoric the Great]], with a [[basilica]] whose grandeur can be reconstructed in imagination from the large surviving areas of [[mosaic]] pavement and the fragments (discovered in 1945) in the form of the [[Chi Rho]] (XP) [[monogram]] of the many bronze lamps that lit the interior. Almost certainly the cathedral already possessed a library and [[scriptorium]], in which one or more of the five fifth-century codices it still owns were written. Besides two treatises by Saint [[Hilary of Poitiers]], they include the sermons of Maximinus, the [[Arianism|Arian]] bishop of [[Ravenna]], with marginal notes in a [[Gothic alphabet|Gothic script]], evidently copied in a centre ruled by the Arian king of the [[Ostrogoths]]. 
[[File:Codice di Ursicino.jpg|thumb|The Codex of Ursicinus, dated August 1, 517 CE]]
The scriptorium's earliest dated product is a little later: the ''Life of Saint Martin of Tours'' by his disciple, [[Sulpicius Severus]], transcribed in 517, during the [[Roman consul|consulship]] of [[Agapitus (consul 517)|Agapitus]], by Ursicinus, 'Lector' (the second of the orders of priesthood) 'of the church of Verona.'{{sfn|Zorzi|2001|p=242}} Literary texts - histories in particular, but also the Younger Pliny's ''Letters'' and the poems of [[Tibullus]] and Catullus, the latter a native of Verona - entered the library at an early date and must have presented later scribes, especially in the seventh and eighth centuries when [[vellum]] was scarce and precious, with a constant temptation to wash off' the earlier writing and re-use the material. But [[Palimpsest|palimpsests]], commonplace in the [[Bobbio Abbey|Bobbio]] scriptorium, were unusual, though not unknown, at Verona. A first-century legal textbook, the ''Institutes'' of Gaius, and the [[Pliny the Elder|Elder Pliny]]'s ''[[Natural History (Pliny)|Natural History]]'' were both erased to make room for later works, the ''Letters and Commentary on Ecclesiasticus'' of Saint Jerome. In the eighth century, probably under Bishop Egino, a [[Germany|German]] from the abbey of Reichenau, new copies in pre-caroline minuscule were made of some uncial manuscripts; [[Claudian]]'s poems and the anonymous collections of maxims known as the ''[[Distichs of Cato]]'', still in the Capitolare, and [[Livy]]'s ''[[Ab urbe condita]]'', now lost. A collection of sermons now in the [[Berlin State Library]] was illustrated with miniatures - the earliest surviving example of book illustration from Verona - and a few volumes were acquired from abroad. Saint [[Pope Gregory I|Gregory the Great]]'s exposition of the [[Book of Job]] (''[[Moralia in Job]]'') had been copied in the [[Burgundy|Burgundian]] [[monastery of Luxeuil]], and a [[Mozarabic Rite|Mozarabic]] breviary found its way from [[Spain]], via [[Sardinia]] and [[Pisa]], to Verona, where a [[scribe]] added a [[Veronese Riddle|riddle]] in local dialect, 'he divided the oxen, ploughed the white fields, held a white plough and sowed black seed' an allegory for writing evidently invented in the scriptorium.
[[File:Karl der Grosse - Pippin von Italien.jpg|thumb|Charlemagne (left) and Pippin of Italy (right), in a 10th century illuminated manuscript from Fulda]]
In the early years of the ninth century, a time of relative peace and prosperity under [[Charlemagne]]'s son, [[Pepin of Italy]], the ''scriptorium'' was directed by one of those exceptionally able and energetic men whose careers have often been decisive in the transmission of a text or the history of a library, the [[Archdeacon]] [[Pacificus of Verona|Pacificus]]. He was born in 776, probably of a noble landowning family of Verona, and was educated at the [[Abbey of Reichenau]].<ref>{{cite book|first=Maureen C.|last=Miller|title=The Formation of a Medieval Church: Ecclesiastical Change in Verona, 950-1150|location=New York|publisher=[[Cornell University Press]]|year=1993|page=124}}</ref> He was appointed archdeacon in 801. He evidently felt a deep loyalty to the ''schola sacerdotum'', the corporation of cathedral clergy of which he was ''[[Ex officio member|ex officio]]'' joint head, and obtained from the bishop a grant of property to pay their salaries as well as exemption from episcopal jurisdiction for the canons. When he died in 844, the residue of his substantial estate, after providing for a charitable inn and oratory and for annual gifts to the poor, was left to the ''schola''.

Two years later the Canons erected a memorial tablet in the cathedral. This recorded that Pacificus had been 'outstanding in wisdom and of conspicuous appearance: no such man has been known in our time, or we believe ever' - and listed his skills and achievements. Founder or restorer of seven churches: expert worker in [[gold]], [[silver]] and other metals, [[marble]] and all kinds of wood: author of a commentary on the [[Old Testament|Old]] and [[New Testament]]s, and of 'many other writings' (among them a manual on the [[computus]] and a topographical glossary of Verona); inventor of a night clock and of a poem attached to it (the latter has been tentatively identified: in two manuscripts it is illustrated by a drawing of an instrument shaped like a [[telescope]], no doubt designed to tell the time from the position of the stars). ''Bis centenos terque senos codicesque fecerat'' - he 'made' two hundred and eighteen manuscripts: the [[epitaph]]'s claim, formerly regarded as poetic exaggeration, is now accepted as an exact statement of the scriptorium's output under Pacificus. He has been recognised as the scribe of almost a third of the twenty-seven ninth-century manuscripts remaining in Verona: many of the others contain his corrections and notes. They are written in the beautiful [[Carolingian minuscule|minuscule]] perfected by the [[Carolingian Renaissance]]: Pacificus seems to have taken a leading part in its propagation in Italy. He may have been trained at [[Reichenau Abbey|Reichenau]] and was certainly in touch with Northern scholars, Archbishop [[Hincmar]] of [[Reims|Rheims]], to whom he sent the sermons of Verona's fourth-century bishop, Saint [[Zeno of Verona|Zeno]], and [[Rabanus Maurus]], Abbot of [[Fulda]], whose commentary on [[Book of Judith|Judith]] and [[Book of Esther|Esther]] was copied at Verona. Other aspects of his intellectual interests are revealed in an enquiry by a canon of the cathedral, forwarded by Pacificus to a German monk in a Brescian monastery, whether at the [[Last Judgment|Day of Judgement]] [[Adam]] would be among the saved; and in a rather forced comparison of his own composition between the seven grades of the priesthood and episodes in the life of Jesus (e.g. '[Christ] was a ''lector'' when he opened the [[Book of Isaiah|book of the Prophet Isaiah]]'). His favourite light reading, to judge from the frequency of his notes, was the early Christian '[[Ancient Greek novel|novel]]', the ''[[Clementine Recognitions]]'', whose protagonists are [[Saint Peter]], [[Clement of Rome|Clement]], the first [[Pope]], and [[Simon Magus]]; its stories from [[Greek mythology]], intended to illustrate the immorality of the pagan pantheon, have been attentively studied.
[[File:Livius,_Ab_urbe_condita,_Florence,_Plut._63.19,_fol._7r.jpg|thumb|A 10th-century manuscript of Livy's ''Ab urbe condita''  with [[marginalia]] by Ratherius]]
Pacificus's renewal of the Verona Library, designed to provide the clergy and the cathedral school with necessary texts, [[Bible|biblical]], [[Liturgy|liturgical]], [[Patristics|patristic]] and conciliar, did not completely exclude secular works. Transcripts were made both of a historical encyclopaedia (now divided between [[Berlin]] and [[Saint Petersburg]]) and of the collection of biographies of the Roman emperors known as the ''Scriptores Historiae Augustae''. A century after his death the work was continued by [[Ratherius]], the best scholar of the day, familiar with [[Plato]]'s ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'', [[Horace]], [[Terence]] and other classical authors. A [[Flanders|Fleming]], appointed bishop of Verona in 931 by [[Hugh of Italy|Hugo of Provence]], King of Italy, Ratherius was delighted by the standard of learning in his see, 'another [[Athens]] for the multitude of its wise men', and numerous annotations show that he read his way carefully through the library.{{sfn|Hobson|1970|p=21}} The anarchic conditions of tenth-century Italy (he was expelled from the [[diocese]] three times) prevented any comprehensive modernisation or enlargement of the collection as had been possible in the [[Carolingian Empire|Carolingian era]]. But the scriptorium was still at the high level of competence it had attained under Pacificus, and under Ratherius' direction it completed at least one major enterprise, the preparation of two copies of the pre-caroline Livy. One remained in the cathedral to replace the eighth-century exemplar which in accordance with normal practice was destroyed after being copied. The other was presented to the [[Holy Roman Emperor|Emperor]] and found its way to the [[Worms Cathedral|cathedral of Worms]]: rediscovered by [[Beatus Rhenanus]] in the sixteenth century, it was used for the edition printed by [[Johann Froben]] at [[Basel]] in 1535.{{sfn|Hobson|1970|p=21}}

Bishop Egino is thought to have taken some Verona books to Reichenau and Ratherius may have removed others. For the next three hundred years, though the collection continued to be replenished with new works, the early manuscripts were forgotten, until in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century a school of [[rhetoric]] arose in [[Padua]] whose exponents started to explore the ancient libraries of the region. Their earliest discoveries were [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]]'s ''[[Senecan tragedy|Tragedies]]'' in the [[Pomposa Abbey|abbey of Pomposa]] and Ratherius' Livy at Verona. The unique manuscript of [[Catullus]] to have survived from antiquity, the source of all modern knowledge of his poems, was the next to attract attention; it was known to [[Benvenuto Campesani]] of Vicenza, and probably copied by him before 1323.{{sfn|Hobson|1970|p=21}} In 1317 the French [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] [[Bernard Gui]], on a mission from the Pope to the ruler of Verona, [[Cangrande I della Scala]], came upon the library's rich collection of early councils. Eleven years later a friend of Petrarch's father, ser Simone d'Arezzo, took up residence in the city as canon of the cathedral, and almost immediately occupied himself in transcribing the [[Livy]]. Petrarch was shown the transcript and entered its variant readings in his own copy, which in turn was used a century later by [[Lorenzo Valla]] for his influential work on the text, ''Emendationes in T. Livium''. In 1339-41 [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]]'s son Pietro used the library to write his commentary on the ''[[Divine Comedy]]''.{{sfn|Zorzi|2001|p=243}}

Petrarch himself first visited Verona in 1345, a fugitive from an outbreak of local warfare in [[Lombardy]], and was overjoyed to find in the cathedral, and copy, [[Cicero]]'s letters to [[Titus Pomponius Atticus|Atticus]], Brutus and Quintus, on which he modelled his own style in correspondence.{{sfn|Hobson|1970|p=22}} In later years through his friendship with Guglielmo da Pastrengo, [[chancellor]] to [[Cansignorio della Scala]], he was able to add to his personal library other works derived from the Capitolare: [[Marcus Terentius Varro|Varro]]'s advice to farmers, the ''De re rustica'' (the author's only work to survive complete), the ''Eclogues'' of two minor poets, [[Titus Calpurnius Siculus|Calpurnius]] and [[Nemesianus]], and the ''[[Scriptores Historiae Augustae]]'', of which he first obtained a copy, in 1356, and later the ninth-century original.  

These early humanists, who seem to have been allowed free access to the library, recovered its ancient texts just in time, as with the crumbling of the [[Scaliger|Scaliger dynasty]]'s authority after 1375 the collection was extensively plundered. The [[Catullus]], Varro and Cicero disappeared: the Livy was appropriated by Antonio da Legnago, one of the four regents for Cansignorio's infant sons; another regent, Giacomo da San Sebastiano, laid hands on an eleventh-century [[Orosius]] and an [[Augustine of Hippo|Augustine]] presented to the cathedral by Pacificus and bearing the archdeacon's solemn malediction on book-thieves. Other volumes passed into the possession of the victorious [[Visconti]] rulers of [[Milan]] and were eventually removed to [[Blois]] by King [[Louis XII]] of France with the rest of the Milanese ducal library from the castle of Pavia. The copy of [[Pliny the Younger|Pliny]]'s ''[[Epistulae (Pliny)|Epistulae]]'' was last seen by [[Guarino da Verona]] in 1419. Probably over four-fifths of the manuscripts present in Ratherius' day were lost before or soon after 1400. The chief event in the Capitolare's modern history was the construction of the first library building in 1728, as a consequence of renewed interest in the collection caused by an unlikely sequence of events. In 1630 the librarian, Canon Agostino Rezzani, hid the most ancient manuscripts to protect them from foreign troops gathering to [[War of the Mantuan Succession|attack Mantua]]. Soon afterwards he and eleven other members of the chapter succumbed to [[1629–1631 Italian plague|plague]], taking the secret of the hiding-place with them to the grave. The early codices were forgotten and their existence denied when the French [[Congregation of Saint Maur|Maurist]] scholars, [[Bernard de Montfaucon]] and [[Jean Mabillon]], visited Verona on their Italian journeys.{{sfn|Zorzi|2001|p=243}}
[[File:Portret_van_Scipione_Maffei,_RP-P-1938-776.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Francesco Scipione Maffei]]
At last in 1713 the historian [[Francesco Scipione Maffei]] persuaded Canon Carinelli to lay aside temporarily his [[Genealogy|genealogical]] studies in order to search for the missing books. They were discovered in the hollow top of a cupboard outside the canons' common-room, concealed under layers of rags and boards. The news, carried instantly to Maffei, so excited him that he ran into the street dressed in dressing-gown, nightcap and slippers. Gifts and bequests poured into the library in the aftermath of this sensation: the collections of Monsignor [[Francesco Bianchini]], [[antiquarian]] and [[astronomer]] and of Giovanni Morosini, Bishop of Verona; the manuscripts and papers of Francesco Scipione Maffei; [[Matthias Corvinus]], King of Hungary's Livy, a present from the [[Bevilacqua dynasty|Bevilacqua family]]. Since the German historian, [[Barthold Georg Niebuhr|Barthold Niebuhr]], discovered the submerged ''[[Institutes of Gaius|Institutes]]'' of [[Gaius (jurist)|Gaius]] in 1816 the collection has attracted the leading [[Palaeography|palaeographers]] of Europe and America.<ref>{{EB1911|wstitle=Gaius|volume=11|page=391}}</ref> One of those to visit Verona was [[Léopold Victor Delisle]], the great director of the [[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]. In a letter of 1885 to one of his colleagues in Paris, he wrote of 'a day of debauch among manuscripts, few in number but of such venerable antiquity that I thought I was dreaming when I saw so many treasures assembled on a few shabby shelves.'{{sfn|Hobson|1970|p=23}}

War has dealt Verona two hard blows. On 16 May 1797, 'the luckless day' in the words of a former librarian, the French commissioners, in pursuance of the [[Napoleonic looting of art|national policy of removing Italian works of art to Paris]], appropriated thirty manuscripts and fourteen [[incunable]]s, not all of which were recovered after [[Battle of Waterloo|Waterloo]]. On 4 January 1945, a [[Consolidated B-24 Liberator|Liberator bomber]] out of formation and off course released its bombs on Verona. The library suffered a direct hit and was totally destroyed. The manuscripts, incunabula and archives had been removed to safety but many later printed books were lost. No time was lost in clearing the débris and starting to rebuild: a new library was inaugurated on 28 September 1948.{{sfn|Hobson|1970|p=23}}

== Notes ==
{{Reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
* {{cite book
	| last = Hobson
	| first = Anthony
	| author-link = Anthony Hobson (book historian)
	| date = 1970
	| title = Great Libraries
	| url = 
	| location = London
	| publisher = [[Weidenfeld and Nicolson]]
	| page = <!-- or pages: -->
	| isbn = 
}}
* Giuliari, G.B. Carlo, ''La Capitolare biblioteca di Verona'' (1888), edited by Gian Paolo Marchi, Verona, Italy: s.n., 1993.
* {{cite book
	| date = 1994
	| title = Biblioteca Capitolare, Verona
	| location = Florence
	| publisher = Nardini
	| page = <!-- or pages: -->
	| editor = Alberto Piazzi
}}
* {{cite book
	| last = Marchi
	| first = Gian Paolo
	| date = 1996
	| title = I manoscritti della Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona: Catalogo descrittivo redatto da don Antonio Spagnolo
	| chapter = Breve discorso storico sulla Biblioteca Capitolare di Verona
	| location = Verona
	| publisher = Mazziana
	| page = <!-- or pages: -->
	| editor = Silvia Marchi
}}
* {{cite book
	| last = Zorzi
	| first = Marino
	| date = 2001
	| title = International Dictionary of Library Histories
	| chapter = Capitular Library of Verona
	| location = New York
	| publisher = Routledge
	| pages = 242–3
	| editor = David H. Stam
	| chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=APtYCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA242
	| isbn = 978-1136777851
}}

== External links ==
* {{Official website|https://www.bibliotecacapitolare.it/}} {{in lang|it}}

[[Category:Libraries in Veneto]]
[[Category:Buildings and structures in Verona]]