Page:Destruction of the Greek Empire.djvu/458

412 DESTEUCTION OF THE GEEEK EMPIEE I am unaware what authority Hody has for stating 1 that after the capture of the city a hundred and twenty thousand books were destroyed, but that the destruction was great cannot reasonably be doubted. 2 After the conquest the treasures guarded by the Greek monks rapidly began to disappear, and especially from the capital. The octagonal libraries, one of which formed usually an adjunct to every church, were taken from the Christians by the victorious Turk and applied to other uses, 3 and the contents were for the most part dispersed or de- stroyed. Successive travellers for two centuries found rich gleanings among them, and the number of manuscripts taken or sent away suggests that the original stores in Constanti- nople had been enormous. Janus Lascaris returned to Italy with two hundred books, eighty of which were as yet un- known in the libraries of Europe. Even as late as the time of Busbeck, who was ambassador of the Holy Eoman Emperor to Suliman in 1555, he was able to conclude the announcement of his return home by saying : ' 1 have whole wagon-loads, if not ship-loads, of Greek manuscripts, and about two hundred and forty books which I sent by sea to Venice. I intend them for Caesar's library. I rummaged every corner to provide such kind of merchandise as my final gleaning.' 4 While it is beyond doubt that the dispersion of students from Constantinople aided the intellectual movement in 1 Hodius, De Graecis illustribus. 2 Aeneas Sylvius, in 1454, before the diet of Frankfort says : 1 Quid de libris dicam, qui illic erant innumerabiles, nondum Latinis cogniti ? . . . Nunc ergo et Homero et Pindaro et omnibus illustrioribus poetis secunda mors erit.' 3 One such at least still remains at Zeirek Jami. 4 Probably more manuscripts existing as rolls (the original volumen) than in book form have disappeared. The Turks, for example, when they occupied Mount Athos during the Greek revolution, found the rolls very convenient for making haversacks. The books have perished mostly from neglect. The discovery by the present bishop of Ismidt of the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (AtSax^ ruu 5c68eKa airoaroXap) in 1883, in the library of a monastery on the Golden Horn bound up with other manuscripts, the first of which only was indexed, gives hope that others of value may yet be found. The same remark applies to the recovery, about six years ago, of the Purple MS. of the Gospels, known techni- cally as Codex N, and now at St. Petersburg.