Fig. 100. The library-settles (spalliere) once used in the Vatican Library of Sixtus IV., and now in the Appartamento Borgia. From a photograph.
But the presence of a spalliera is not the only peculiarity in the furniture of this room. Platina's catalogue shews that, connected in some manner with each seat, were two coffers (capsæ): and we have seen that 12 such chests were brought into the Library in 1481. I have placed these in pairs at the ends of the desks opposite the settle (spalliera).
Innermost Library, or Bibliotheca pontificia. This Library contained 12 desks. These, from their number, must have stood east and west. There was also a spalliera, which held the Papal Registers. I have placed it in the recess on the north side of the room, which looks as though made for it.
It should be noted that there was a map of the world in the Library, for which a frame was bought in 1478[402]; and a couple of globes—the one celestial, the other terrestrial. Covers made of sheepskin were bought for them in 1477[403]. Globes with and without such covers are shewn in the view of the Library of the University of Leyden taken in 1610 ([fig. 69]); and M. Fabre reminds us that globes still form part of the furniture of the Library of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, fitted up by Cardinal Francesco Barberini, 1630-40[404].
Comfort was considered by the provision of a brazier on wheels "that it may be moved from place to place in the Library[405]."
The following curious rule, copied, as it would appear, in the Library itself, by Claude Bellièvre of Lyons, who visited Rome about 1513, shews that order was strictly enforced:
Nonnulla quæ collegi in bibliotheca Vaticani. Edictum S. D. N. Ne quis in bibliotheca cum altero contentiose loquatur et obstrepat, neve de loco ad locum iturus scamna transcendat et pedibus conterat, atque libros claudat et in locum percommode reponat. Ubique volet perlegerit. Secus qui faxit foras cum ignominia mittetur atque hujusce loci aditu deinceps arcebitur[406].
Before concluding, I must quote an interesting description of this Library by Montaigne: