[372] MS. Vat. 5008.
[373] These accounts, now preserved in the State Archives at Rome, have been printed with great accuracy (so far as I was able to judge from a somewhat hasty collation) by Müntz, Les Arts à la Cour da Papes, Vol. iii. 1882, p. 121 sq.; and by Müntz and Fabre, La Bibliothèque du Vatican au xve Siècle, 1887, p. 148 sq.
[374] The entries referring to these purchases are given in full, with translations, in my paper above referred to.
[375] The name is derived from the frescoes with which its external walls were decorated during the reign of Pius IV. (1559-1565). They represented palm trees, on which parrots (papagalli) and other birds were perching. Fragments of these frescoes are still to be seen. The court beyond this "del Portoncin di Ferro" was so called from an iron gate by which the passage into it from the Cortile del Papagallo could be closed.
[376] The difference of level between the floor of the court and the floor of the library is eighteen inches. An inclined plane of wood now replaces the steps.
[377] Item pro purganda bibliotheca veteri et asportandis calcinaciis duarum fenestrarum factarum inter græcam et latinam b. xx die qua supra, i.e. 20 Aug. 1480. Müntz, p. 132.
[378] A Foundling Hospital, alluding to the Ospedale di Santo Spirito founded by Sixtus IV.
[379] Fabre, La Vaticane, p. 464. Bunsen, Die Beschreibung der Stadt Rom, ed. 1832, Vol. ii.. Part 2, p. 418.
[380] 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.
[381] Fabre, La Vaticane, p. 465, citing Bandini, Bibliothecæ Mediceo-Laurentianæ catalogus, i. p. xxxviii.