¹ Wilson, R. M., “The Contents of the Mediaeval Library,” in The English Library before 1700: Studies in Its History, ed. Wormald, Francis and Wright, C. E. (London, 1958), 86. “On the whole it seems possible that the best evidence is that afforded by the extant catalogues of the libraries.” Google Scholar

The author wishes to thank William P. Stoneman for bringing the Prato inventory to his attention; and Albert Derolez and Peter Gumbert for reading the article in draft and making helpful suggestions about bibliographic identifications.Google Scholar

² More than forty years ago, Franco Bartoloni cited Giorgio Pasquali's 1931 call for collecting medieval Italian library catalogs and noted that the situation had changed little in the intervening years. Bartoloni, Franco, “I cataloghi delle biblioteche medioevali,” in Relazioni del X Congresso Internationale di Scienze Storiche, 1. Metodologia problemi generali scienze ausiliarie della storia, Biblioteca Storica Sanconi, Nuova serie 23 (Florence, 1955), 430. Fortunately, the situation is much improved today. See especially the bibliography compiled by Guarda, Donatella Nebbiai-Dalla, I documenti per la storia delle biblioteche medievali (secoli IX–XV), Materiali e Richerche, new series 15 (Rome, 1992), 14–22 (“Orientamenti bibliografici”).Google Scholar

³ Particularly useful for Prato Cathedral are four books by Giuseppe Marchini: Il Duomo di Prato (Prato, 1957); Il tesoro del Duomo di Prato (Prato, 1963); La Capella del Sacro Cingolo del Duomo di Prato (Prato, 1975); La Sacra Cintola del Duomo di Prato (Prato, 1995). See also Gurrieri, Francesco, Donatello e Michelozzo nel pulpito di Prato (Florence, 1970).Google Scholar

⁴ Bensa, Enrico, Francesco di Marco da Prato: Notizie e documenti sulla mercatura italiana del secolo XIV (Milan, 1928); Brun, Robert, “A Fourteenth-Century Merchant of Italy: Francesco Datini of Prato,” Journal of Economic and Business History 2 (1930): 451–66; Origo, Iris, The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini, 1335–1410 (New York, 1957); Melis, Federigo, Aspetti della vita economica medievale, Studi nell'Archivio Datini di Prato (Florence, 1962).Google Scholar

⁵ Included in the collection are some five thousand Italian notarial documents and archival records chiefly from the period 1200–1650 and pertaining to Fabriano, Vicenza, Bergamo, and other places. John Hinsdale Scheide deposited the bulk of the document collection in the Princeton University Library in 1938. Nine years later the collection was formally donated to Princeton in the memory of John Hinsdale Scheide by his son William H. Scheide. For an overview of the Scheide Collection's holdings of Italian notarial documents, see Skemer, Don C., “Partners and Protocols: Sources of Italian Economic and Social History, 1200–1650,” Princeton University Library Chronicle 54 (1992): 24–38. There is an unpublished item-by-item inventory of the Scheide Collection, which should be used in conjunction with the unpublished catalog of manuscripts in The Scheide Library, both in the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.Google Scholar

⁶ Olschki would recall in 1930 that William T. Scheide “bought of me thousands of documents of interest for the history of trade and bookkeeping in ancient times” (Letter from Leo S. Olschki to John Hinsdale Scheide, 28 November 1930. The Scheide Library, Princeton). On S. Stefano di Prato Olschki's antiquarian trade, see Tagliaferri, Cristina, Olschki: Un secolo di editoria 1886–1986, 1: La libreria antiquaria editrice Leo S. Olschki (1886–1986) (Florence, 1986); Rosenthal, Bernard, “Cartel, Clan, or Dynasty? The Olschkis and the Rosenthals,” Harvard Library Bulletin 25 (1977): 381–98.Google Scholar

⁷ For purposes of comparison of handwriting, the author used Cesare Guasti's own annotations and corrections reproduced in the reprint edition of his Miscellanea pratese, di cose inedite o rare antiche e moderne, ed. Fiorelli, Piero (Prato, 1982).Google Scholar

⁸ Bandini, Laura and Fantappiè, Renzo, L'Archivio del capitolo della cattedrale di Prato (secolo XI–XX) (Prato, 1984), xlv–xlviii.Google Scholar

⁹ Nicastro, Sebastiano, “Prato: Raccolta Guasti,” in Mazzatinti, Giuseppe et al., Inventari dei manoscritti delle biblioteche d'Italia 31: Prato — Vercelli — Novara (Florence, 1925), 22, no. 68 (“Proposti e Vescovi, con un elenco, prezioso degli antichi libri della Propositura”) and 23, no. 75 (“Inventario di libri e arredi degli antichi Proposti Pratesi. Cartapecora volante”). de Feo, Francesco, ed., Carteggi di Cesare Guasti, 7: Carte di Cesare Guasti: Inventario (Florence, 1981) 45, no. 76 (“Busta contenente n. 12 inserti di appunti e copie di documenti tratti da manoscritti della Biblioteca Roncioniana e dell'archivio Capitolare…. 12. Miscellanea di appunti trati da codici roncioniani, tra cui la copia di un Inventario di libri e arredi degli antichi proposti pratesi, cc. 13, bianca la c. 10”). The Biblioteca Communale combines the printed and manuscript holdings of the Biblioteca Roncioniana, founded in 1722 by Marco Roncioni, and the Biblioteca Communale “Alessandro Lazzerini,” founded in 1836. Gabrieli, Giuseppe, Notizie statistiche storiche bibliografiche delle collezioni di manoscritti oggi conservati nelle biblioteche italiane (Milan, 1936), 142–43.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Bandini, and Fantappiè, , L'Archivio del capitolo, xxx–xxxi, 510.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ughelli, Ferdinando, Italia sacra sive de episcopis Italiae …, 2d ed. (Venice, 1718), 3, cols. 317–19; Guasti, Cesare, Bibliografia pratese (Prato, 1844), 66–67; Baldanzi, Ferdinando, Della chiesa cattedrale di Prato: Descrizione corredata di notizie storiche e di documenti inediti (Prato, 1846), 143–69; Pegna, Mario Lopes, “La propositura pratese dalle origini al secolo XIII,” Archivio Storico Pratese 32 (1957): 3–17; Fantappiè, Renzo, ed., Le carte della propositura di S. Stefano di Prato 1: 1006–1200 (Florence, 1977), vii–xiv; Prato e i Medici nel ’500: Società e cultura artistica (Rome, 1980), 253–55; Manselli, Raoul, “Instituzioni ecclesiastiche e vita religiosa,” in Braudel, Fernand et al., eds., Prato storia di una città 1, pt. 1 (Prato, 1991), 766–67; Cardini, Franco, Cultura e società nella Toscana medioevale: Firenze e Prato (Florence, 1996), 75–81.Google Scholar

¹² Fantappiè, , Le carte della propositura 1, 333–34 (“textum euangeliorum et librum passionarium et librum Augustini … suprascriptum textum euangeliorum eidem propositi per manus suorum fratrum canonicorum pro debito XX librarum alii obligare permisit,” 1163); 421 (“prepositus uel eius capitulum ibidem inuestiat cum l[i]b[ro],” 1184); 438 (“inuestiat cum libro et stola in manu prepositi aut capituli,” 1188); 484 (“ita tamen ut plebanus et prepositus uel eius missus teneant librum,” 1198).Google Scholar

¹³ Fantiappiè, Renzo, “Nascita d'una terra di nome Prato,” in Storia di Prato 1: Fino al secolo XIV (Prato, 1981), 189–90; Renzo Fantappiè, “Nascita e sviluppo di Prato,” in Braudel, , Prato storia di una città 1, pt. 1, 210; Cardini, Franco, “La cultura,” ibid., 1, pt. 2, 825.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Gimignano Inghirami (1364–1460), a Bologna-educated canon lawyer long in the service of the papal curia and finally prior of S. Stefano di Prato from 1447 until his death, had a fine collection of books, most copied for him by scribes or in his own hand. He had a library constructed for these books in the Palazzo della Propositura in 1451. At least seventy-seven volumes from his library survive in the Biblioteca Roncioniana (twenty-two received from the Palazzo del Proposto in 1845, where they had remained after his death) and the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana (fifty-five received in 1778 from the library of the Operai di S. Maria del Fiore, Prato, to which Inghirami had bequeathed them in 1460). Guasti, Cesare, “Ricordanze di Messer Gimignano Inghirami,” Archivio storico italiano, series 5, 1 (1888): 20–68; Baldanzi, , Della chiesa cattedrale di Prato, 164–69; Guasti, , Bibliografia pratese, 125–28; Bandini and Fantappiè, L'archivo del capitolo, xlvi (n. 71); Maffei, Domenico, “La biblioteca di Gimignano Inghirami e la ‘lectura clementinarum’ di Simone da Borsano,” in Proceedings of the Third International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, Strasbourg, 3–6 September 1968 , ed. Kuttner, Stephan, Canonici, Monumenta Iuris, Series C: Subsidia, 4 (Vatican City, 1971), 217–36, esp. 218–26; Vicario, Mario, “Un ‘nuovo’ codice appartenuto a Gimignano Inghirami,” Accademie e biblioteche d'Italia, anno liii (new series 35, 1985): 201–9.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Derolez, Albert, Les catalogues de bibliothèques , Typologie des sources du Moyen Âge occidental 31 (Turnhout, 1979), 17–20, 29–30, 40–42; Humphreys, Kenneth W., “The Early Medieval Library,” in Silagi, Gabriel, ed., Paläographie 1981. Colloquium des Comité International de Paléographie, München, 15.–18. September 1981, Münchener Beiträge zur Mediävistik und Renaissance-Forschung 32 (Munich, 1982), 67–70.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Guidi, Pietro and Pellegrinetti, E., Inventari del vescovato della cattedrale e di altre chiese di Lucca, Studi e testi 34 (Rome, 1921), 120–339.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Guarda, Nebbiai-Dalla, I documenti, 98–100.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Humphreys, , “The Early Monastic Library,” 67.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Pegna, Lopes, “La propositura pratese,” 16–17. Guidi, Pietro, ed., Tuscia, 1. La decima degli anni 1274–80, Rationes decimarum Italiae nei secolo XIII e XIV; Studi e testi 58 (Vatican City, 1932), xvi–xviii, xxxvi–xxxviii, 56 (no. 1212); 2, Le decime degli anni 1295–1304, Studi e testi 98 (Vatican City, 1942), 75, 87 (nos. 1330, 1586).Google Scholar

²⁰ On descriptive models for late-medieval library catalogs and inventories, see Guarda, Nebbiai-Dalla, I documenti, 94–101. Physical description could include relative size, writing materials, binding type and color, condition, decoration, and other factors.Google Scholar

²¹ For descriptions of library inventories and holdings, see Becker, Gustav, ed., Catalogi bibliothecarum antiqui (Bonn, 1885), esp. 157–72 (Bibliotheca Pomposiana, a.d. 1093); Gottlieb, Theodor, Über mittelalterliche Bibliotheken (Leipzig, 1890), 179–254; Guidi, Pietro, Inventari di libri nelle serie dell'Archivio Vaticano, 1287–1459, Studi e testi, 135 (Vatican City, 1958); Kaeppeli, Thomas, “Antiche biblioteche domenicane in Italia,” in Archivum fratrum praedicatorum 36 (1966): 5–80; Guarda, Nebbiai-Dalla, I documenti, 72.Google Scholar

²² Fantappiè, Renzo, Il bel Prato (Prato, 1983), 1, 60; Bandini, and Fantappiè, , L'Archivio del capitolo, xlvi.Google Scholar

²³ Petrucci, Armando, Writers and Readers in Medieval Italy: Studies in the History of Written Culture, ed. and trans. Radding, Charles M. (New Haven, 1995), 206–7.Google Scholar

²⁴ Grendler, Paul F., Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300–1600 (Baltimore, 1989), 6–11. Cardini, , Cultura e società, 82–87 (“L'istruzione laica”). Beyond the scope of the priory's library holdings were significant fourteenth-century works by authors from or associated with Prato, including works by two local grammarian-poets: (1) the Regia carmina of Convenevole da Prato, composed around 1320, a luxuriously illuminated manuscript of which is found in the British Library; and (2) Il Cinturale of Duccio d'Amadore, inspired by the locally important cult of the Virgin Mary's Belt or Girdle and dedicated to Cardinal Giovanni Colonna in 1340 when he became prior of Prato. Guasti, , Bibliografia pratese, 83–84, 95–96; Cardini, , “La cultura,” in Prato storia di una città 1, 857–60, plates 96–105. In his Miscellanea pratese, no. 1 and 3, Guasti discusses and provides editions of vernacular works by the fourteenth-century Prato writers Paolo dell'Abbaco and Ugo Panziera. An edition of the anonymous work La leggenda della cintola di Maria Vergine is found in Bibliografia pratese, 240–49, and Miscellanea pratese, no. 2.Google Scholar

²⁵ Thirteenth-century library inventories for Italian cardinals tend to enumerate the particular books of the Bible contained in particular codices. In the 1287 codicil of Cardinal Comes of Casate, for example, the glossed books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) were contained in one volume. Proverbs could be bound with Ecclesiastes and the Canticles, the Acts of the Apostles with the Catholic Epistles and the Apocalypse, and so on. See Mather, Richard, “The Codicil of Cardinal Comes of Casate and the Libraries of Thirteenth-Century Cardinals,” Traditio 20 (1964): 319–50 esp., 333–34, 344–45). In the 1381 library inventory of the Convent of S. Francesco in Assisi, the books of Moses contained Leviticus and Numbers; and Joshua was bound with Judges, Ruth, Nehemiah, and Esther. See Alessandri, Leto, ed., Inventario dell'antica biblioteca del S. Convento di S. Francesco in Assisi compilato nel 1381 (Assisi, 1906), 4–5, 50–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁶ For use of the word liber, see Dolbeau, François, “Noms de livres,” in Weijers, Olga, ed., Vocabulaire du livre et de l’écriture au moyen âge: Actes de la table ronde, Paris 24–26 septembre 1987, Études sur le vocabulaire intellectuel du moyen âge 2 (Turnhout, 1989), 83–88. In the fifteenth century William Horman wrote in his Vulgaria, “Volumen proprie libro minus est et liber codice; vt liber in volumina diuidatur et in libros codex.” Quoted in Robinson, Pamela R., “The Vernon Manuscript as a ‘Coucher Book,’ ” in Pearsall, Derek, ed., Studies in the Vernon Manuscript (Cambridge, 1990), 23.Google Scholar

²⁷ The 1383 Prato inventory makes a vague reference to “XVI alii libelli modici valoris” — booklets that had not necessarily been bound. Bandini and Fantappiè, L'Archivio del capitolo, xxxiv. Similarly, in the 1430 inventory of a Dominican library, no titles were given for composite volumes containing “libri modici valoris.” Kaeppeli, , Inventari di libri, 81–85 (A. 407–8, 429–32, 435–37, 441, 477, 479, 481, 485).Google Scholar

²⁸ Baldanzi, , Della chiesa cattedrale di Prato, 164–68; Bandini, and Fantappiè, , L'Archivio del capitolo, 509–13 (“Codici corali e liturgici [secolo XIV–XX]”). Google Scholar