|
|
In 1824 the Vatican Library acquired from Conte Leopoldo
Cicognara (1767-1834) his famous library of approximately five thousand books
on art, archaeology, and kindred subjects. The books date, in a virtually
unbroken sequence, from the beginning of printing to Cicognara's time. It was
the largest and most judiciously selected library in the field ever brought
together. To this day its possession establishes the Vatican Library as a
generously equipped center for studies in the literature and the history of
art and classical archaeology as well as of art criticism, taste, and
aesthetics.
Cicognara was a poet and an amateur artist, a patron of the arts and one of
the founding fathers of the discipline of art history. He reconstituted the
Accademia delle Belle Arti in Venice (both the school and the museum) and for
many years served as its president. His book on the history of sculpture, Storia
della scultura dal suo risorgimento in Italia fino al secolo di Canova
(title of the revised 2nd. edition, Prato, 1823-4; 1st ed., Venice,
1813-1818) remains unsurpassed.
Cicognara's annotated catalogue of his library, the Catalogo ragionato dei
libri d'arte e d'antichitą posseduti dal Conte Cicognara (Pisa, 1821) has
long been a standard guide to primary sources in the history of art from
antiquity to his own time. The Cicognara Library, as no other library can,
allows us to enter into the discussion, from book to book, on the purposes
and the dignity of art that animated the language of the love and the theory
as well as the practice of art from antiquity to Cicognara's own time. In
addition to a central core of treatises, books, pamphlets, poems, orations,
and programs regarding the arts of painting, sculpture, and architecture and
their history and relation to literature, music, rhetoric, theology,
philosophy, and other branches of the pursuit of knowledge, the library
contains everything in print that Cicognara could assemble on the practice
and teaching of the arts.
Included among these books are many bound volumes of engravings with texts
that show how to draw and paint, how perspective works, how to build houses,
bridges, fountains, machines, etc. In addition, there is a large stock of
books and pamphlets on museums and private collections, sales catalogs,
travel to historic and artistic sites, many volumes of engravings of works of
art and architecture, feasts, funerary rites and solemn entries, costume and
dress, emblems, hieroglyphs, and much more. A perusal of the library offers
an enlightening view of how artists worked and how collectors and patrons of
art made their choices.
In order to make the contents of the Cicognara Library (the «Fondo Cicognara»
of the Vatican Library) in its entirety available as widely as possible the
project operates on a not-for-profit basis. The generous interest in the
Project of the Vatican Library and the support of the Samuel H. Kress
Foundation help make this possible. The films are taken by the Photographic
Department of the Vatican Library and turned into microfiches by
Chadwyck-Healey, Ltd. of Cambridge, England.
So far forty-three institutions have subscribed; as each new ‘unit’ is
completed it is sent to the subscribers.
Until his death on September 11, 2000, Philipp Fehl was Editor-in-Chief,
working with Raina Fehl and Barbara Steindl. They are now continuing the
work. A new edition of the Catalogo ragionato dei libri d'arte e
d'antichitą posseduti dal Conte Cicognara accompanied by an improved
index and introductory material is being prepared by Raina Fehl and Barbara
Steindl and will be published by the Vatican Library. Leonard Boyle, Prefect
of the Vatican Library in 1988 when Philipp Fehl came to him with the idea,
was Director of the Project until 1997. Since then the current Prefect, Don
Raffaele Farina, has been Director of the Project.
For information regarding subscriptions and for any other enquiries, please
contact
Raina Fehl, mrfehl@uiuc.edu, or
phone: 217-344-8065 or Katharine Fehl at 920-446-2696
|
|
|
