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

284 PEARL KIBRE
to France and placed at Blois by Louis XII. The books were later
transferred by order of Francis I to Fontainebleau and eventually
became part of the national library in Paris."5 The library of the
university of Erfurt, a fifteenth century creation, also accorded
Aristotle a considerable prominence,"6 and his treatises and their
commentaries formed a large part of the collections of both George
Valla and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola."17
Not only in the extent to which the Scriptures, theology, and
Aristotle, were represented did the libraries of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries show a close relationship with those of the thirteenth
and earlier ages, but also in the continued treasuring of
other works popular with the schoolmen of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The presence in the catalogues of Latin translations
of such authors as Algazel, Averroes, and Avicenna,
reflected the continued interest in Arabic philosophy. The medieval
regard for Pliny's Natural History still persisted and was
sufficiently strong at the end of the fifteenth century to evoke the
famous Pliny controversy between the two humanists, Pandolfo
Collenuccio and Niccolo Leoniceno."8 The De mirabilibus mundi
of Solinus also enjoyed the esteem of fifteenth century collectors,
since they chose to place the work on their shelves along with the
Etymologies of Isidore of Seville. It was the latter, among medieval
encyclopedists, however, who was the most favored among
humanists. Petrarch relates that a copy of Isidore 's work was
given him by his father and he treasured it all his life."9 Of the
several encyclopedic works composed in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, only Bartholomaeus Anglicus, in the De proprietatibus
rerum, appears to have triumphed on the continent in the struggle
with oblivion over Alexander Neckham, Thomas of Cantimpre, and
others. Bartholomaeus' work was found in practically every European
collection in the fifteenth century. It was current in Italian,
115 L. Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits, I, 125 ff.
116 H. 0. Lange, "Ueber einen Katalog der Erfurter Universitiitsbibliothek aus
dem 15. Jahrhundert," Centralblatt fiur Bibliothekswesen, II (1885), 279 ff.
117 P. Kibre, op. cit., 28 fif.
118 See L. Thorndike, History of magic and experimental science (New York,
1934), IV, chap. LXVI; R. Sabbadini, op. cit. (1914), 241.
119 D. Robathan, "Libraries of the Italian Renaissance," in J. W. Thompson,
The medieval library, 525; Pierre de Nolhac, "De patrum et medii aevi scriptorum
codicibus in bibliotheca Petrareae olim collectis," Revue des bibliothe'ques, II (1892),
261; L. Delisle, Le cabinet des manuscrits, I, 139. For the distribution of the work
of Isidore of Seville in these libraries, see R. Sabbadini, op. cit. (1914), 230.
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