Biblioteca Ambrosiana

Biblioteca Ambrosiana

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a famous Milanese library. Was named the library after church father Ambrose of Milan. The library is one of the most important in Europe in medieval writings and documents such as drawings, prints and documents.

History

The Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Federico Borromeo had since 1602, the new library in Milan set. On December 8, 1609, Biblioteca Ambrosiana was open to the public. The cardinal associated it with a board of 16 scholars, each for their fans get the notice of the relevant art and should advise the visitor. Lack of funds limited the college of doctors of Bibliothecae Ambrosianae to a few members.

Over the next decade, the library opened in 1618 in conjunction with the Art Gallery Pinacoteca Ambrosiana and the Academy of Art opened in 1621 to a scientific and cultural center of Italy was. Soon after the founding of the library were several private collections, including the Gian Vincenzo Pinelli added, Francesco Ciceri and Cesare Rovida.

The establishment of a library was an unusual step for a cardinal and caused a sensation. Such foundations were according to the understanding of that time rather a rich secular princes to as an archbishop. Federico Borremeo had to fight in the enforcement of this project for decades with difficulties. Neither in Rome nor in Milan, he was unconditionally support in planning and securing his project.

Stock

Already Borromeo put on an extensive collection of manuscripts, including Greek and Oriental manuscripts, whose acquisition he sent buyers to Greece and the Orient. The library was one of the late 19th century already about 160 000 printing units and 8000 manuscripts. The current collection of the library contains over 850 000 prints, 35 000 manuscripts and over 2100 incunabula, 10,000 drawings, 30,000 engravings, also a coin collection and an archaeological collection.

Among the most important pieces of the collection include 51 fragments with 58 miniatures of the Iliad Ambrosiana from the 5th century, in 1119 leaves the Codex Atlanticus from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, a donation of Galeazzo Arconati, the De Prospectiva Pigendi the mathematician Luca Pacioli and autographs of Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Galileo Galilei, Giuseppe Parini, Alessandro Manzoni and the Milanese poet and social critic Carlo Porta.

Librarians

Throughout its history, the library had a number of distinguished scholars as library director, including the historian Giuseppe Ripamonti, the exact description of the plague in Milan the 16th century source was promessi Sposi for Alessandro Manzoni's novel I, Ludovico Antonio Muratori the historian, considered the father the Italian historiography applies, Cardinal Angelo Mai, 1819 an extensive, hitherto unknown text from Cicero's De re publica rediscovered as a palimpsest in the Vatican Library and published, Achille Ratti, who later became Pope Pius XI. Pope was, as well as the biblical scholars and Gianfranco Ravasi Hebrew scholar who is currently president of the Pontifical Commissions for Sacred Archaeology and for the Cultural Heritage of the Church.