It
was a very quiet place, imbued with a cloistered sanctity, and remote
from all street-cries and rumble of the city,--odorous of old
literature,--a spot where the commonest ideas ought not to be expressed
in less than Latin.
The librarian--or custode he ought rather to be termed, for he was a man
not above the fee of a paul--now presented himself, and showed us some of
the literary curiosities; a vellum manuscript of the Bible, with a
splendid illumination by Ghirlandaio, covering two folio pages, and just
as brilliant in its color as if finished yesterday. Other illuminated
manuscripts--or at least separate pages of them, for the volumes were
kept under glass, and not to be turned over--were shown us, very
magnificent, but not to be compared with this of Ghirlandaio. Looking at
such treasures I could almost say that we have left behind us more
splendor than we have kept alive to our own age. We publish beautiful
editions of books, to be sure, and thousands of people enjoy them; but in
ancient times the expense that we spread thinly over a thousand volumes
was all compressed into one, and it became a great jewel of a book, a
heavy folio, worth its weight in gold.
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