BOOKS AND LIBRARIES IN TIVOLI

II. THE LIBRARY OF THE MONASTERY OF SANTA MARIA MAGGIORE
AT THE VILLA D'ESTE AND THE PAPYRI OF THE CHURCHES OF TIVOLI

During the centuries of the barbarian invasions, a part of the rich Greek and roman library heritage was saved, especially thanks to the Benedictine Order which, for approximately a millennium, promoted the transcription and study of the manuscripts inherited from the previous libraries.
These monastic centres of copyists lasted uninterruptedly until the diffusion of the printed book, thanks above all to ecclesiastics linked to Santa Maria Maggiore. This monastery was in fact transformed, in the late 16th century, into the magnificent Villa of Cardinale Ippolito II d'Este and his court, to whom the first books printed in the town by Domenico Piolati were dedicated.

The Benedictine monastic movement developed in the town of Tivoli. It would play a role of major importance in the diffusion of the book and of writing.

• At Tivoli the monastic libraries, forges of culture and civilization, were open to scholars.
• The many monasteries included not least that of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, which still faces the entrance to the Villa d'Este.
• The presence of a rich library with a considerable production of manuscripts is testified in it. Among the materials used for manuscripts papyrus and parchment were of particular importance.

One of the most important and most ancient documents of Tivoli is the Regesto Tiburtino, a parchment volume written in the early years of the 12th century, to which additions were made in the second half of the century.

• It was probably produced under bishop Ottone or under his successor Milo (c.1148-1187).
• The historical and technical importance of the codex consists in the fact that it is a transcription by two scribes of the earliest documents of the town of Tivoli, that concern, directly or indirectly, the privileges of its church.
• This transcription was made from the originals in papyrus, conserved in the Archivio Vescovile in Tivoli.
• The work of transcription was also careful to record any difficulties encountered: "non ultra lectum est", annotated the scribe, who was probably unable to transcribe what had been irreversibly damaged in the original papyrus.
• The codex is decorated with miniatures, some of them full page, almost certainly painted by the same amanuenses who copied the texts.

Particularly flourishing among the various monastic schools was that of Santa Maria Maggiore (at the Villa d'Este). It was so important that a popular tumult was unleashed when it was suppressed to make way for the Franciscans, who took over from the Benedictines by order of Alexander IV in 1256.

In the archive of Santa Maria Maggiore was preserved the complete official parchment codex of the Statutes of the city of Tivoli of 1305 "penes notarium comunis vel ad Sanctam Mariam Maiorem de Tybure" which is of exceptional historical importance.

• It was purchased by the civic authorities of Tivoli on the art market in 1908 and is now in the rare book collection of the Biblioteca Comunale in Tivoli.

Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este, Governor of the town of Tivoli, was given accommodation in the part of the monastery of Santa Maria Maggiore allocated to this purpose.

• Now it's known what kind of sumptuous residences the cardinal was used to. He came from the court at Ferrara and had long lived in France, as a member of the private council of François I, who presented him with the abbey of Saint-Medard at Soisson and also assigned to him the abbeys of Pontigny and Boibonne.
• So the rapidity with which the cardinal assigned to Pirro Ligorio the commission to design the present villa is quite understandable. It was born and developed from some rooms of the former Benedictine monastery.
• In fact, given the considerable importance that the monastery had in the past as a place for the diffusion of culture, perhaps no other site, by tradition and culture, could have been more suitable to receive the cultivated cardinal and his court, frequented by the most illustrious minds of the period.

The Library of Santa Maria Maggiore was still active in the 18th century.

Following the suppression of ecclesiastical institutions, the present Biblioteca Comunale can boast of an ancient collection, enriched, in 1870, by the manuscripts and parchment codexes from the monastery of Santa Maria Maggiore: for example, it is from there that the parchment codex of Gregorian chant of the 14th or 15th century comes.