The Intellectual Interests Reflected in Libraries of the Fourteenth and ...

280 PEARL KIBRE
translations of the latter were included in the library of the Visconti
Sforza; in that of the duke of Berry and in that of Charles
of Orleans, as well as in other French libraries. Accompanying
these works were usually such popular medieval treatises as the
Legends of the Saints by James of Voragine, the Rationale of the
Divine Office by William Durandi and, especially in the German
libraries, the work on the same subject by the twelfth century
author, John Beleth.
Compositions of the leading ecclesiastics and schoolmen of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries appear frequently in the inventories,
among them works of St. Anselm, St. Bernard of Clairvaux,
Hugh of St. Victor, Peter Lombard, and from the thirteenth century
William of Auvergne, Bonaventura, Albertus Magnus, and
Thomas Aquinas. More recent writers of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries on scholastic themes were also not neglected. The
works of John Duns Scotus, John of Turrecremata, Jean Gerson,
Pierre d'Ailly, and many others, found their way into these libraries
and testify to the continued interest in the subjects and themes
of scholasticism even in the midst of the humanistic revival.
Fifteenth century libraries also reflected the continuity as well
as the blending of medieval interests with those of the humanists
in other fields. The first two subjects of the trivium, that is grammar
and rhetoric, which had formed the basic pillars of the medieval
interest in the liberal arts, now provided the focal points for
humanistic interests and achievements. Under these classifications
the older grammatical favorites, Donatus, and Priscian, along with
the twelfth century Doctrinale of Alexander of Villadei and the
Graecismus of Eberhard of Bethune held their place beside the
more recent humanist grammars by Guarino of Verona, Giovanni
Tortelli of Arezzo, Lorenzo Valla, and Niccolb Perotti. The fact
that Cicero's rhetorical works and the Declamations ascribed to
Quintilian were especially conspicuous provides a further link with
the interests of the immediate past since these had been the standard
guides throughout the entire medieval period. But when we
turn to the humanistic literature which had formerly been placed
under poetria as a subdivision of grammar, there is a sharp contrast
between the fifteenth century libraries and those of the preceding
centuries. For while writings of the classical Greek and
Latin poets had never been entirely absent from representative
medieval libraries, they were never found in such profusion as was
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