is cooking or for the wooden cradle
lined with pamphlets which he slung between his shelves for a bed. He
died in 1714, in his eighty-second year, dirty, ragged, and as happy as a
king; and certainly not less than eight thick volumes of sonnets and
epigrams appeared at once in his praise. He left about 30,000 volumes of
his own collecting, which he gave to the city upon condition that they
should be always free to the public. The library that bears his name
contains more than ten times that number. It includes about 60,000
printed books and 2000 MSS. that once belonged to the Grand Dukes, and
were kept in their Palatine Galleries. There have been many later
additions; but the whole mass is now dedicated to the worthiest of its
former possessors, and remains as a perpetual monument of the most
learned and most eccentric of bookmen.

CHAPTER VII.

ITALIAN CITIES--OLYMPIA MORATA--URBINO--THE BOOKS OF CORVINUS.

The memory of many great book-collectors has been preserved in the
libraries established from ancient times in several of the Italian
cities. There are two at Padua, of which the University Library may claim
to have had the longer existence: but the 'Capitolina' can claim Petrarch
as one of its founders, and may boast of the books on antiquities
gathered by Pignoria, the learned commentator upon the remains of Rome
and the historian of his native city of Padua. It may be worth noticing
that there were several smaller collections in the churches, due to the
industry of bookmen whose names have been forgotten. We hear of the books
of St. Anthony and of Santa Giustina: and as to the library in the Church
of St. John the tradition long prevailed that Sixtus of Sienna, a noted
hunter after rare books, saw on its shelves a copy of the _Epistle to the
Laodiceans_, and read it, and made copious extracts.

Mantua received many of the spoils of Rome from Ludovico Gonzaga, which
were lost in the later wars: the most famous acquisition was Bembo's
tablet of hieroglyphics, which was interpreted by the patient skill of
Lorenzo Pignoria. At Turin the King's Library contains some of the papers
and drawings of Ligorio, who helped in the building of St. Peter's: but
most of his books were taken to Ferrara, where he held an official
appointment as antiquary. The University Library contains the collections
of the Dukes of Savoy, including a quantity of Oriental MSS., and some of
the precious volumes illuminated by the monks