The Barberini Library at Rome contains a vast number of books covered
with marginal notes by celebrated writers, such as Scaliger, Allatius,
Holstentius, David Haeschel, Barbadori, and above all, Tasso, who has
annotated with his own hand more than fifty volumes. Valery, in his
_Voyages en Italie_, states that a Latin version of Plato is not only
annotated by the hand of Tasso, but also by his father, Bernardo; a fact
which sufficiently proves how deeply the language and philosophy of the
Greek writers were studied in the family. The remarks upon the _Divina
Commedia_, which, despite the opinion of Serassi, appear to be
authentic, attest the profound study which, from his youth, Tasso had
made of the great poets, and the lively admiration he displayed for
their works. There is also in existence a copy of the Venice edition of
the _Divina Commedia_ (1477), with autograph notes by Bembo.
Christina of Sweden had quite a mania for writing in her books. In the
library of the Roman College (at Rome) there are several books annotated
by her, amongst others a {52} Quintus Curtius, in which, as it would
appear, she criticises very freely the conduct of Alexander. "_He
reasons falsely in this case_," she writes on one page; and elsewhere,
"_I should have acted diametrically opposite; I should have pardoned_;"
and again, further on, "_I should have exercised clemency_;" an
assertion, however, we may be permitted to doubt, when we consider what
sort of clemency was exercised towards Monaldeschi. Upon the fly-leaf of
a Seneca (Elzevir), she has written, "_Adversus virtutem possunt
calamitates damna et injuriæ quod adversus solem nebulæ possunt_." The
library of the Convent of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem at Rome, possesses
a copy of the _Bibliotheca Hispanu_, in the first volume of which the
same princess has written on the subject of a book relating to her
conversion: [1] "_Chi l'ha scritta, non lo sa; chi lo sa, non l'ha mai
scritta_."
Lemontey has published some very curious _Memoirs_, which had been
entirely written on the fly-leaves and margins of a missal by J. de
Coligny, who died in 1686.
Racine, the French tragic poet, was also a great annotator of his books;
the Bibliothèque National at Paris possesses a Euripides and
Aristophanes from his library, the margins of which are covered with
notes in Greek, Latin, and French.
The books which formerly belonged to La Monnoie are now recognizable by
the anagram of his name. _A Delio nomen_, and also by some very curious
notes on the fly-leaves and margins written in microscopic characters.