If anyone of us ran our own country, we would definitely drive no small amount of resources toward building an awe-inspiring national library. This would be true even if we ran a country the size of the Vatican, the world's smallest country both in terms of area as well as population — but one that, unsurprisingly, punches well above its weight regarding the size and historical value of its holdings.
The Vatican Apostolic Library, also known as "VAT," has grown over the past five and a half centuries. It now contains about 75,000 codices and 85,000 incunabula amid a total of more than one million volumes.
Thanks to an ongoing digitization project launched ten years ago, increasingly many documents have become searchable and downloadable on DigiVatLib.
DigiVatLib is a database of the Vatican Library’s digitized collections including not just the codices and incunabula mentioned above, but also archival materials, inventories, graphic materials, coins, and medals.
The VAT's scanning, uploading, and organizing have continued apace since. Although it prioritizes manuscripts "from the Middle Age and Humanistic Period," its materials have a wider historical and cultural sweep, one that only gets wider with every page added. You can begin exploring this wealth of documents by scrolling down a little on DigiVatLib's front page, in the middle of which you will find the latest digitized materials and also a host of selected manuscripts.
COMMENTS