The Library of the Popes - Discover Ancient Sacred Texts preserved in the Vatican | EWTN Vaticano

[Music] [Music] you [Music] [Music] Rome is a full emersion centuries of history [Music] experience through its architecture its layout sculptures and paintings [Music] visitors come face to face with the greatness of the Roman Empire but also the spiritual glory of medieval times here visitors can't help but also discover the wonders of the Renaissance and Baroque periods all of this brimming with the Christian culture that runs deep into the most profound roots of this ancient city [Music] the Vatican City State is located in the heart of Rome an independent nation governed by the Pope and despite being the smallest nation in the world the Vatican conserves some of the most valuable treasures in all of human history [Music] one jewel hidden behind the Vatican walls is the Vatican's apostolic library one of the most important collections of knowledge in the whole world the library of the Pope's [Music] we're inside the pontifical walls in the so called Cortile del belvedere a or the panoramic courtyard father meets welcome grazie grazie Mille welcome to our library parking garage gracias Senor Creasy per limit or visit our quest ability stole the car but econo where no younggren don't know la la vas la villita Nora hey Demi well for sure movie day [Music] from its beginnings the church has shown a great interest in the written word the preferred means for preserving and transmitting sacred scripture through the ages the Vatican Library from its birth in the mid 15th century has also been collecting and preserving works from numerous areas of study both sacred and secular the library makes Abbie's text available to scholars from all over the world [Music] among the treasures kept in the lowest part of the library of those of the greatest intellectual significance such as Virgil's Aeneid which dates back to the first century there also works a great artistic and theological value such as a reproduction of Dante's Divine Comedy by the humanist Prince Frederick of montefeltro there are also texts such as a series of letters signed by Martin Luther father of the Protestant Reformation [Music] as its history spans over 2,500 years Pope's library has demonstrated over the centuries that it has not only a religious but also a truly humanist character bonia they let me be a picker vaticana the history of the vatican library can be understood by its content the library was born during the Renaissance he was founded by Renaissance Pope Nicholas v in 1451 the Pope ordered that many texts related to the Bible but also many others be collected and preserved but it was the Pope of the Sistine Chapel Sixtus the fourth who founded the Vatican Library in a formal manner in 1475 the first location of the library was also in the panoramic courtyard but on the other side which is still possible to visit that of Sixtus the fourth is frescoed and there is also a big fresco depicting the Pope appointing the first prefect of the library at the end of the year 1500 the library was transferred to its current location at the time of Sixtus v who had reigned for only five years without the Florentine Guarani during the brief pontificate of Sixtus the fifth the Vatican Library enjoyed international fame and it was considered the richest library in the world for this reason the Pope decided to enlarge the premises in just two years the pontiff's library inaugurated a new head courts words continued to grow to the present day a library is an integral part of the instruments necessary for the exercise of the patron ministry and for the governance of the church in fact not everyone knows that of all the institutions which make up the Holy See the library is the only one that is the exclusive property of the pontiff [Music] through the library the Pope along with the Cardinal librarian and prefect faces the historical and cultural reality of the present time learning from the past with the perspective projected towards the future and precisely because of the great importance of the library since the end of the 15th century the prefect is physically lived on the premises in order to respond to the immediate needs that may arise on any given day well senior decided pussini you are the prefect of the apostolic library and you live here yes but now where do we need to go where are you going to take us over celebeauty cos we're going toward the library and we're going through this gallery where there are inscriptions of the ancient Roman world the Roman Empire the Emperor's the augustus is on this side on the other hand we have inscriptions that come from Christian places generally from the category misogyny speranza these are messages of hope written when they entrusted their loved one to the afterlife el intento stiamo entrando nella Beauty meanwhile we are entering the library this was the traditional entrance that scholars took for centuries when they came to consult our manuscripts here and these are not books they're stones but they're part of the library and most oh man look this passageway is very beautiful from the inscriptions on the stones to the books the library is interested in anything written that has handed down a message through history a story anything that helps us understand humanity see normal nothing that is truly human is outside of the concern of the church and it's precisely its interest in all things human that makes the library a privileged place where scholars from all over the world have access to more than 1.5 million books almost two hundred thousand manuscripts and more than 600 thousand texts and artifacts of extraordinary value including metals coins photographs engravings and drawings the only thing that is asked of the scholars is that they perform only serious studies in good faith without ulterior motives and with intellectual rigor [Music] now we will move from the inscriptions on stone to the writings on parchment on papyrus on paper and finally we can see the books all writings are important for the library but these books are the most important well this book in particular is extremely important to me because this is the codex be tell us about this explain this to us please and famosa Cody Shea the beabea it's a famous Bible codex the entire bible in greek from the middle of the 4th century it is thought that the emperor constantine may have allocated the money to buy the parchment and to create such a large and valuable book and therefore also it is the testimony of when the empire became christian became interested in christian writings and this is the oldest copy of the Bible as a complete Bible though the whole Bible it's the oldest one we have Khmer adición a nest esto Greco and a Pew antique a complete time as a Greek text it is the oldest complete edition then came other editions expanded also into Latin and even Syria but the first major Edition was this one and so we're proud to have it in the library it arrived at the beginning of the library perhaps not with Pope Nicholas v but with his almost immediate successor Sixtus the fourth and 1475 we're sure it was already here Sentosa temptation question more secure a job we perhaps it was brought in by a patriarch of Constantinople for the council of Ferrara and Florence that which attempted to create unity among Christians in 1439 among the treasures of the Vatican library there's one that stands out for its inestimable historical and religious value what has been known as the Bodmer papyrus transcribed at the beginning of the 3rd century AD it's the oldest known manuscript of the Gospels of Saint Luke and Saint John in 2006 an American benefactor Frank J Hanna the third donated it to the library and since then the papyrus has also been known as the Hanna papyrus this is also important we were open to the Gospel of John what is this for piracy question papito continue this is a papyrus containing the Gospel according to Luke in the Gospel according to John there are fragmentary parts because of the process of conservation some fragments have been lost but it is a booklet that contains as a whole both st. Luke and Saint San Giovanni these documents are important because finally they give us an interval text of the Bible and it is very ancient fourth century but here we are two centuries earlier and we have a rich testimony of the gospel um yeah David really antsy during this time Saint Irenaeus of Lyon lived who was originally from Izmir later in his life he went to Lyon st. Irenaeus knew the Greek world and the Latin world both Irenaeus of Lyon a very important text for its indication of the four Gospels Matthew Mark Luke and John precisely in this order davina and here we have a physical testimony of the passage from the Gospel according to Luke it ends here there's a space and the Gospel according to John begins so they made a booklet only with Luke and John why is that because you can't use papyrus for a booklet that's too thick the edge won't hold so there must have been another one with Matthew and Mark as it was not handed down to us but at least this has been handed down to us and we are proud to have it we want to thank you because your work in the work of everyone here continues to conserve and pass on to the future thank you very very much thank you to you in a few moments we'll be back with more on my Chicano [Music] we continue our journey through the vatican apostolic library founded by pope nicholas v in the middle of the 15th century after accessing the library through the galleria lapid area the lapidary gallery an old entrance created during the pontificate of Six's v we now go to one of the most interesting rooms of this institution located on the highest floor of the building the Sistine Hall with an area of 1000 square meters it was considered for centuries the largest consultation room in Europe divided into two large halls both seventy meters long illuminated by the natural light two fourteen windows the Sistine Hall is a masterpiece of the fresco painting technique the iconographic cyclical design adorning it revolves around a main theme the celebration of the book in the written word [Music] if a visitor enters through the door that connects the vestibule with the sistine hall he'll come face-to-face with a central row of pillars covered in fresco paintings that tell the story of alphabets we see these pillars tell the story of alphabets the origins in the Middle East in Egypt in Greece Latin all the way on forward to the Etruscan and Armenian alphabet and the alphabets of the Slavic peoples this brings out a key element pillars holding up the Pontifical library that this apostolic library exists because letters are the basis of writing down words and by having these different alphabets the languages of the human race can be expressed in letters that conform to the sounds each language makes and this is what makes possible human words being sent to other places where the speaker is not you can send a message far away after the history of the alphabets on the central columns the iconographic cyclical design continues along the two side walls where frescoes tell the history of the libraries the history of the library is told from antiquity to the Renaissance era and there's also the history of the ecumenical councils but also as this apostolic library witnesses too you can have human words be passed on into the future generations people can speak abroad and people can speak through time because of writing an amazing human invention [Music] but we also see portrayed in the frescoes on one wall a history of the libraries beginning with Moses putting the law of God in the care of and then later on we see estrus also after the exile in Babylon starting a Hebrew library it portrays the other great libraries of the world the library at Athens where the Greeks began to collect their books the library in Babylon which also has within it Daniel being involved in that knowledge so that a religious person from our own faith tradition of ancient Israel is involved in that and then we see how the last king of the Romans tried to burn a book that he didn't find complementary to him the sibylline oracles he burned all the truth but then later on the Emperor Augustus collects books and his reign become a period of great collecting of books we see also the libraries that develop by Christians in the great city of Jerusalem Christian fathers gathered together books and then in the city of Caesarea maritima which was in fact the political capital more Christian books are gathered with the great scholar of the Bible the origin as part of that the first one to compare different texts of the Bible we also have the great library begun with the Apostles at Rome but then culminating also in Rome with the Pope's gathering books and from the earliest centuries the Pope's made collections and in one sense we see that this library which was begun by Pope Nicholas and continued on through the centuries gathers these [Music] the church cares deeply about passing on the knowledge and it's the knowledge of all things this is important for us to understand this nature this library but then finally we also see that the other wall is filled with frescoes of the histories of the great councils of the church and this is key for understanding the purpose of this library on one hand various people used human logic to try and understand God but when they reduced God to their own logic and they didn't let me go God the Scriptures widen there then we see that they made mistakes and committed a great sin called heresy which is to take a part of the truth out of the context of the whole of truth and what they do at these councils beginning with Nicaea in 325 is bring together the knowledge of God in Scripture that's why in every council the Bible is enthroned at the very center of the council but they use human logic human knowledge submitted to the revelation by God and they work through the difficulties people like areas who denied the divinity of Christ said no he's just a super human and with a super being then we see later on at the Council of Constantinople that they are all through the denial of the divinity of the Holy Spirit and then we see the problem that came at the Council of Ephesus where they did not understand the way that Christ is a divine person with two distinct natures and that's the council where they understood that Mary's the mother God because Jesus is God she didn't give him divinity but he is divine they go on with the other councils dealing with a variety of problems such as does Christ have one world or does he have two wills a human will and a divine will in other words is he truly human and divine as applying to his will then we see that they deal with questions like can you have images all of these are brought together at the to work out the combination of human science and most importantly divine science and resolving that wisdom and without a library like the great apostolic library here at the Vatican we would have no way to help that knowledge come together and this is a terrific service of the church to aid us in this deeper understanding of all knowledge as well as the knowledge of God as God reveals himself in a few moments we'll be back with more on Vatican [Music] when referring to the library of the Pope's one may think of a mysterious place where secret documents and forbidden works are hidden nothing could be further from the truth since one of the founding motivations of the Vatican Library is to make texts available to scholars from around the world to make known to the world the treasures it holds and to conserve them for future generations [Music] a heritage that includes not only books and manuscripts but also graphic works of enormous historical value in a major collection of coins and medals [Music] in addition to the mission of sharing knowledge with scholars of the world there's also the mission of preserving of restoring the treasures of the library to carry out this mission Pope Leo the 13th created the restoration laboratory at the end of the 19th century [Music] you talk about books we always think about the text itself but we the restores and conservers devote ourselves mainly to the material part of the book and here in this book for example we see that the old books transmit a lot of history simply by paying attention to the material use yeah for example this book has been widely used it has also been well loved the monastery where it was kept so loved this book because you can see all of the very consumed edges of the pages mm-hmm this book has also been repaired many times over I can't talk about restoration to try to make it last longer they have made a bit of an ugly repair here in Boca fea fatal they wanted it to last the restorer put fabric to cover and protect the miniatures a clear devotion to this magnificent book occasionally Baro magnifica and I can also show you some of the damage this is the typical damage of metal based inks that corrode the paper controlling a puppy that's a major problem with paper when they used to make it out of the skins of animals it was stronger but paper is also made with chemicals and it reacts the chemicals and that so that the chemicals of the ink broke through the paper see they children for several arrests in fact restorers not only need to know how to use their hands but must also have a knowledge of chemistry paleography codicology the study of manuscripts and a knowledge of historical materials as we said parchment was more resistant we have some examples of books that were written at the time parchment was changing to paper at that time in history because they did not trust the resistance of paper they used to put the external bibliography on parchment and the text on paper as it was cheaper they didn't really trust the paper at that time and that explains some of the motivation of the text this is why I said at the beginning that the book not only transmitted history through the words itself but so the material expresses mr. de Leon was transmitted only muchisimas tolya precisely it is in the restoration process that we've tried to preserve all the materials this damage that a text has also displays its history for example we may not want to remove the same because it does not create any damage and allows us to see that this book was widely used this process is used to reintegrate the paper with fresh paper but only the material is reintegrated the actual writing is never filled in the text is never filled in as it would be like making a fake the reason we would be creating a fake is because we don't really know what the writer had written there I always give this example it would be like putting your arms in the same position of a Venus de Nino and filling in one missing piece it is true that Venus had arms and surely carried something but it is not known exactly [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] another important reality of the Vatican Library is the photographic laboratory founded by pope pius xi at the beginning of the 20th century it's here that the photographic reproductions of most of the treasures of the library are made these include manuscripts books engravings drawings medals and coins [Music] from its birth the photographic laboratory in libraries carried out its documentary mission by adapting itself to technical innovations throughout history in fact today the library is using technology developed by NASA to preserve digital documents photography laboratory I'm fine thank you like to present you to our audience that you are dr. arima Schuler and you were here in the photographic laboratory at the Vatican apostolic library exactly and exactly what is it that you do here to help in the preservation of the Vatican collection actually the photographic activity is very important for preservation but also access to manuscripts so in our laboratory we photograph since many de cartes the manuscripts but also other objects of the library and publisher and also online in order to give access to the contents yes as a matter of fact I've been able to get access to some of the documents so exactly biblical yeah science because you've done that and one of the things that we want to do is go through and see how you make that access and preservation and dissemination because that's part you disseminate these very ancient documents so that scholars like myself who live in the United States mm-hmm in here about or see printed version we can actually look at an image of the document you can look at the image and you can read the text and you can do all this at high resolution yes there is an internal project of a vatican library that permits to photograph to scan whole manuscripts in Charlie and then for our archive to put them in our long-term preservation system but also to put them online free and to also catalogue them to add metadata and give access to the whole world to these contents [Music] but the Vatican Library doesn't in here in addition to the various laboratories cabinets and consultation rooms there's also the Library Archives the document repository where the most valuable works are proudly stored there's also an area dedicated to editorial and exhibition activities all of this is under the watchful eye of the sanctuary of Culture Foundation which since August of 2007 has been watching over the Pope's library dedicating its efforts to the restoration collection study preservation research and promotion of the treasures it holds [Music] when Senor Mendoza thank you so much for allowing us to come here in film father Mitch it was our pleasure the library's mission is to preserve the memory of the Church of Christianity and the heritage of humanity we are custodians but custodians with the great desire to make known the treasures we guard thank thank thank you thank you appreciated over there arrivederci [Music] after our brief journey through the library's different areas we can affirm without a doubt that it's truly a living reality that's still developing the library continues to be enriched and adapts to each historical moment in order to preserve and spread the wonders which are contained within [Music] [Music] [Music] you

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Keywords: eva, eva11403, ytsync-en, codex vaticanus, hanna papyrus, gospel, archaeology, history, culture, library, library of alexandria, library of celsus, vatican museums, musei vaticani, ewtn, biblioteca apostolica, vatican, vaticana, vaticano, catholic, books, manuscript, literature, alphabet, ancient alphabet, church council, constantinople, nicea, aeneid, dante, virgil, divine comedy, bible, god, jesus, popes, renaissance, sistine chapel, fresco, beauty, st. peter's basilica, rome, pontifical council for culture

Id: dgiYKfSuaVg

Length: 36min 9sec (2169 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 20 2019