Contents

Chapter Page
[List of Illustrations][vii]
[I]Classical[1]
[II]Ireland—Northumbria[13]
[III]England[27]
[IV]Italy—The Age of Petrarch[41]
[V]Oxford—Duke Humphrey's Books—The Library of the Valois[53]
[VI]Italy—The Renaissance[63]
[VII]Italian Cities—Olympia Morata—Urbino—The Books of Corvinus[76]
[VIII]Germany—Flanders—Burgundy—England[87]
[IX]France: Early Bookmen—Royal Collectors[99]
[X]The Old Royal Library—Fairfax—Cotton—Harley—The University of Cambridge[111]
[XI]Bodley—Digby—Laud—Selden—Ashmole[124]
[XII]Grolier and his Successors[139]
[XIII]Later Collectors: France—Italy—Spain[158]
[XIV]De Thou—Pinelli—Peiresc[169]
[XV]French Collectors—Naudé to Renouard[183]
[XVI]Later English Collectors[202]
[Index][221]

List of Illustrations

Page
Portrait of Peiresc[Frontispiece]
(From an engraving by Claude Mellan.)
Initial Letter from the 'Gospels of St. Cuthbert[18]
Seal of Richard de Bury[38]
Portrait of the Duke of Bedford praying before St. George[59]
(From the Book of Hours commonly known as the 'Bedford Missal.')
Portrait of Magliabecchi[74]
(From an engraving in the British Museum.)
Binding executed for Queen Elizabeth[112]
(English jeweller's-work on a cover of red velvet. From a copy of 'Meditationum Christianarum Libellus,' Lyons, 1570, in the British Museum.)
Portrait of Sir Robert Cotton[117]
(From an engraving by R. White after C. Jonson.)
Portrait of Sir Thomas Bodley[126]
(From an engraving in the British Museum.)
Binding executed for Grolier[141]
(From a copy of Silius Italicus, Venice, 1523, in the British Museum.)
Portrait of De Thou[168]
(From an engraving by Morin, after L. Ferdinand.)

CHAPTER I.

CLASSICAL.