Biblioteca Casanatense

This past Saturday I went to the Casanatense Library, continuing my custom of inviting students and families to join me in exploring Rome on the 3rd Saturday of the month. The library was created by Cardinal Girolamo Casanate who had a collection of 25,000 volumes when he died. In his will the library was entrusted to the Dominicans at Santa Maria sopra Minerva. The library opened to the public in 1701 in a newly built space probably designed by Carlo Fontana in part of the monastery cloister. In 1884 the control of the library was granted to the Italian government. Today the library has over 400,000 volumes.
The library is entered through a nondescript door on a small street beside the Chiesa Sant’ Ignazio. After climbing two flights of steps you reach the floor of the main reading room, the original library space.

It is fascinating to see the collection of books, with Latin headings indicating the classifications. Poetry is at the back, and you pass through the histories and the sciences before coming to the front of the room with the writings of the Church Fathers and theoligians and, in the center, the collection of Bibles.

A statue of Cardinal Casanate oversees the room.

While we were in the library we were able to browse

though an illustrated Missal from the 1400s.

We were fascinated by the detailed illuminations, the lavish use of gold leaf and the brilliant blue color made from grinding up lapis lazuli.
Inside the library (at the bottom of the above picture) is a decree from Pope Clement XI proclaiming that anyone who steals from the library will be excommunicated. Outside the door is a edict saying that abusers of the library will be tortured!

Via Francigena: to Sutri

The goal for the first part of our journey along the Via Francigena was the town of Sutri.

Vincenzo is filling up a water bottle at the fountain

in front of our apartment building before beginning his trek.

I went to the Church of San Gregorio Maggiore near the Coliseum to start my trek. It was Pope Gregory the Great who sent the first missionaries to Canterbury in the year 596, so that was probably the first time people traveled from Rome to Cantebury for spiritual purposes along a route that today is called the Via Francigena.
Shortly after following the Via Cassia out of Rome over Monte Mario, I came to dirt roads that would take me to our first intermediate stop, a shrine to Santa Maria della Sorbo.

There was a castle on this site in the 10th century and in the 15th century a Carmelite monastery was attached to the shrine of Madonna della Sorbo. The shrine is now closed for renovations. These are not the first renovations. The church was restored for the first time by the architect Carlo Fontana (1634-1714). It seems that many years ago this was a popular pilgrimage destination for residents of Rome, especially after Easter.

A small make-shift devotional altar has established itself outside of the gate that prevents access to the shrine during the renovations.

Vincenzo continues on his way to Sutri.

As we approached Sutri we encountered tufa caves, used since the time of the Etruscans. The photo above is the entrance to a pilgrimage chapel that used to be a temple of Mithra.

There are some wonderful frescoes inside the cave church,

including this Madonna del Parto.

The "modern" town of Sutri is on a hill behind me.