nd five bosses of copper,
shew that the left-hand board was uppermost on the desk. The position of
the chain shews that when it was attached the book was intended to lie on
a desk, where the bar must have been in front of, or below, the desk; but
there is also a scar on the upper edge of the right-hand board, which
shews that at some previous period it lay on a desk of what I may call the
Zutphen type, where the bar was above the sloping surface.

With the library at Cesena may be compared that attached to the Dominican
Convent of S. Mark at Florence, built in 1441 for Cosmo dei Medici--the
first public library in Italy. It is on the first floor, and is approached
by a staircase from the cloister. It is 148 ft. long by 34 ft. 6 in.
wide[359], divided into three aisles by two rows of eleven columns. The
central aisle, 9 ft. wide between the columns, has a plain barrel vault;
the side aisles, 11 ft. wide, have quadripartite vaults. In each of the
side-walls there are twelve windows. In all these details the library
resembles that at Cesena so closely that I cannot help suspecting that
Malatesta or his architect may have copied it.

The original fittings have been removed, but we learn from the
catalogue[360] that the books were originally contained in 64 _banchi_,
half of which were on the east side and half on the west side of the room.
There was an average of about sixteen books to each _banchus_. The
catalogue also mentions a Greek library, which had seven _banchi_ on each
side. This was probably a separate room.

There is a similar library at the Benedictine Convent of Monte Oliveto,
near Siena, but it is on a much smaller scale. Like the others, it is
divided into three aisles by two rows of six columns. The central aisle
has a barrel vault, and the side aisles quadripartite vaults. It is 85 ft.
long by 32 ft. broad. There are seven windows on one side only. At the end
of the library, approached by a flight of thirteen stairs, is a room of
the same width and 21 ft. long, which may have been used as an inner
library. An inscription over the door of entrance records that this
library was built in 1516[361].

While discussing the arrangements of Italian libraries, I must not omit
that at the Convent of S. Francis at Assisi[362]. The catalogue, dated 1
January, 1381, shews that the library, even at that comparatively early
date, was in two divisions: (1) for the use of the brethren; (2) for loans
to extraneous persons