More than 80,000 manuscripts from the Vatican Library to be restored and digitized

Vatican City, May 30, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

More than 80,000 ancient manuscripts from the Vatican Library will be restored and digitized thanks to an agreement with the Colnaghi Foundation. The initiative seeks to preserve unique documents and facilitate worldwide access to this treasure of the Church.

The shelves of the Vatican Library house a large part of humanity’s literary legacy. They include more than 82,000 manuscripts and 1.6 million printed books (more than 8,000 of them “incunabula,” which means those printed before 1501).

Among the gems in its catalog are a document with Botticelli’s illustrations for the “Divine Comedy” and the only nearly complete copy of Cicero’s “Republic” that has survived.

Humidity and the decomposition of the inks over time have turned their preservation into a major challenge for all popes.

“The preserved organic material is in a very deteriorated state and would disintegrate if we don’t take action to restore it in the best possible way,” Candida Lodovica de Angelis Corvi of the Colnaghi Foundation told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

Lodovica just signed a five-year agreement with the Vatican precisely to prevent this deterioration.

The agreement includes an ambitious digitization project “that will allow scholars remote access to important documents that are currently only available in person,” she explained. The director of this prestigious commercial art gallery, founded in 1760, noted that this will have “a profound impact on the average person’s ability to access knowledge.” 

One of the main advantages of this project is that the Vatican Library will be able to use a special and unique scanner from the Factum company, a subsidiary of the Colnaghi group. “When you scan the surface, you can obtain more details, for example, determining the date of the [book or document] itself,” she explained.

Furthermore, this device also makes it possible to bring to light parts that are hidden from view. “There is a stratification relative to time within the paper itself. Beneath what we see is previous [writing, printing, or sketches]. There could be a secret message, or it could simply be the result of the need to reuse a piece of paper,” she noted.

In addition, the project also includes an architectural renovation of the library, to be carried out by the David Chipperfield firm, which was founded by the renowned London-based British architect 40 years ago.

The papal library, directed by the Italian Raffaella Vincenti since 2012, has enthusiastically embraced this collaborative effort. “We wish to express our profound gratitude to the Colnaghi Foundation for its generous support of several important library projects, which reinforce our commitment to the dissemination of culture,” said the institution’s prefect emeritus, Monsignor Cesare Pasini. 

Previously unseen works by Caravaggio, Bernini, Tintoretto, and Titian

To celebrate this collaboration between the art world and ecclesiastical institutions, the Codex exhibition opened May 26. It brings together 14 works from private collections that are not normally on view. In fact, visits to this exhibition are limited to a special permit that must be requested from the Vatican through the library. On June 2, the works will return to private collections.

The works on display comprise a visual and historical tour through sacred art and portraits from the Renaissance and Baroque periods, highlighting pieces by some of history’s greatest masters.

The exhibition opens with “St. Peter the Penitent” by Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck, depicting the apostle in tears with a profoundly human expression of repentance, featuring Baroque “chiaroscuro” (strong light and dark contrasts).

Next to the painting is the letter, preserved in the Vatican collection, with which the archbishop of Seville, Antonio Salinas, who commissioned the painting, granted a plenary indulgence to the faithful.

The exhibition continues with “The Triumph of Flora,” a mythological allegory by Mario Nuzzi, exuberant in color and symbolism, celebrating the fertility of nature with a festive and decorative spirit that contrasts with the gravity of other pieces.

Another work on display is Michelangelo’s preparatory sketch for “The Adoration of the Brazen Serpent,” a powerful scene from the Old Testament. The drawing demonstrates the artist’s anatomical and expressive intensity, which manages to condense drama and redemption into a single figure.

Another renowned piece is the “Portrait of Maffeo Barberini,” a work by Caravaggio painted around 1598. It depicts the future Pope Urban VIII when he was about 30 years old. The painting shows Barberini seated, emerging from the shadows, his face illuminated, and dressed modestly in a black robe and cap, holding a document in his left hand and pointing with his right, suggesting an interaction with a figure outside the field of vision. This portrait remained in a private collection in Florence for decades and was attributed to Caravaggio by historian Roberto Longhi in 1963.

The exhibition includes works by other of the most influential artists of the 16th and 17th centuries, such as Titian’s “Portrait of Pope Paul III,” painted during his trip to Rome between October 1545 and May 1546. This painting, in which the pope appears with a shrewd expression and the traditional camauro (a red cap with white trim), a symbol of his authority, belongs to a private collection and is housed in Lisbon, Portugal.

Another portrait is that of “Clement VII,” painted by Sebastiano del Piombo. Of particular note by the artist Tintoretto is the “Portrait of Cardinal Marcantonio da Mula,” which demonstrates the painter’s ability to combine the cardinal’s dignified appearance with dynamism.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/264417/more-than-80000-manuscripts-from-the-vatican-library-to-be-restored-and-digitized