La librairie des rois aragonais de Naples de sa fondation à sa dispersion

Résumé 0

The library founded in Naples in the mid-15th century by Alfonso V of Aragon became the flagship of his cultural policy. Initially housed in the Castello Capuano, the library was moved to a large room in the Castel Nuovo around 1455. Enriched by his son Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Naples from 1458 to 1494, this famous library only remained in Naples for a few decades. Its dispersal began in 1495 with the conquest of the King of France, Charles VIII, who had 1140 manuscripts and printed books transferred from Naples to the castle of Amboise. They became the main nucleus of French kings’ new library, first in Amboise, then in Blois. To date, around 500 manuscripts and 260 printed books have been identified in the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, having moved from Amboise to Blois and from Fontainebleau to Paris.The books remaining in the royal family’s collections were transferred to Tours in 1501 by Frederick, the last monarch of the Aragonese-Napolitan dynasty. One hundred and thirty-eight manuscripts were then sold to Cardinal Georges d’Amboise: they became the core of the first humanist library in France, the one organised by the cardinal at the Château de Gaillon in Normandy.Queen Isabella, widow of Frederick of Aragon, settled in Ferrara in 1508 and had the art collections and all the books from the royal library that had followed her to France transferred there. In 1523, the queen sold one hundred and thirty-two books to the Ferrara humanist Celio Calcagnini and gave around ten of them to her entourage. Her son Ferrando, Duke of Calabria, was appointed viceroy of Valencia, and 306 volumes from the royal library in Naples were transferred from Ferrara to Valencia between 1527 and 1535. On his death on 26 October 1550, the book collection was bequeathed to the monastery of San Miguel de los Reyes. In 1825, 197 manuscripts from the “Libreria de San Miguel de los Reyes” were incorporated into Valencia’s university library, now the Bibliotéca historica de la Universidad. This nucleus, together with the manuscripts and printed volumes that entered the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France as part of the spoils of war of Charles VIII and the acquisitions of Cardinal Georges d’Amboise, now provides us with over a thousand books from the former library of the Aragonese kings of Naples.