of entrance, was occupied by the fresco on which Melozzo dà Forli was working in 1477. It was intended to commemorate the establishment of the Library in a permanent home by Sixtus the Fourth. The Pope is seated on the right of the spectator. On his right stands his nephew Cardinal Pietro Riario, and before him, his head turned towards the Pope, to whom he seems to be speaking, another nephew, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere, afterwards Pope Julius the Second. At the feet of the Pope kneels Bartolommeo Platina, the newly appointed Librarian, who is pointing with the fore-finger of his right hand to the inscription below the fresco. Behind Platina are two young men with chains of office round their necks. They have been identified with Girolamo Riario and Giovanni della Rovere.
The inscription, said to have been written by Platina himself, is as follows:
Templa, domum expositis[1], vicos, fora, mœnia, pontes,
Virgineam Trivii quod repararis aquam,
Prisca licet nautis statuas dare munera portûs,
Et Vaticanum cingere, sixte, jugum,
Plus tamen Urbs debet ; nam quæ squalore latebat
Cernitur in celebri Bibliotheca loco.
The fresco is now in the Vatican picture-gallery. It was transferred to canvas soon after 1815, when the present gallery was formed, and has suffered a good deal from what is called restoration[2].
The decoration of the Greek Library is not alluded to in the Accounts[3]; but an interesting note of it, with an account of the other rooms also, is to be found in the description of the Vatican by Pietro Chattard, written in 1766:
- ↑ A Foundling Hospital : see below, p. 50.
- ↑ Fabre, La Vaticane, p. 464. Bunsen, Die Beschreibung der Stadt Rom, ed. 1832, Vol. ii. Part 2, p. 418.
- ↑ The following entry is curious: Habuere Paulus et Dionysius pictores duos ducatos pro duobus paribus caligarum quas petiere a domino nostro dum pingerent cancellos bibliothecæ et restituerent picturam bibliothecæ græcæ, ita n. Sanctitas sua mandavit, die xviii martii 1478. Müntz, p. 131.
