The Vatican continues its Corona Virus closure, so I'll continue a brief introduction to the numerous collections of manuscripts, this week we are covering those starting C through N. For Fonds starting with A and B, please see Week 12.

• Capp.Giulia - Cappella Giulia. The library of the Cappella Giulia, officially called Reverend Musical Chapel Julia of the Sacrosanct Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican. This is the choir that sings all the Liturgy at St. Peters when the pope is not in attendance. At the moment, most of the digitized copies are simply scans of microfilm, though a few are in color including the beautiful Medici Chansonnier, Capp.Giulia.XIII.27.
• Capp.Sist - Cappella Sistina The library of the Cappella Sistina, the papal choir named for Pope Sixtus IV, who established it as the Cappella Musicale Pontificia to sing in the Cappella Magna, later Sistine Chapel. Josquin des Prez served as choirmaster and composer at the end of the 15th C. It includes Capp.sist.611, a copy of the constitution explaining the responsibilities of the Sistine singers from 1545, the earliest copy of such a document ¹
• Capp.Sist.Diari - Cappella Sistina Diari. A subcollection of the Sistine Choir collection consisting of diaries of the choirmasters. Currently only 7 codicies are digitized and all as low-quality microfilm scans.
• Cappon - Capponiani. The approx. 300 MSS collected by Alessandro Gregorio Capponi were bequeathed to the Vatican in 1746, becoming the Capponiani collection. It has been almost entirely digitized, though some few are still scanned microfilms. The collection contains some superbe manuscripts, such as Cappon.194, a Humanist copy of Polibio's Discorso sopra la milizia romana, made for Francesco Maria della Rovere. ²
• Carte.Stefani - A collection of 74 manuscripts, 53 notebooks and 21 folders from Enrico Stefani (1868-1958) on the Italian archaeological mission in Crete from the first decade of the 20th C. It was added to the Vatican archives in 1969. ³
• Carte.d'Abbadie - Notes made by the 19th Century explorer Arnauld d’Abbadie. Only 2 have been digitized, and both from Microfilm. There is a detailed description of #19 elsewhere.
• Cerulli
  • et - Ethiopian Enrico Cerulli joined in the Fascist goverment installed in Ethiopia in 1926, rising to the post of governer of Harar in 1939. While there he collected a number of manuscripts and In the 50s and 60s his donations of about 325 Ethiopic manuscripts, of dubious and undocumented provinance, became this collection.
  • pers - Persian Between 1950 and 1954 Cerulli was the Italian ambassador to Iran and collected a number of Persian manuscripts. These 1055 manuscripts, of which 13 are, in part or in full, in Turkish, form this collection. It has a particular focus on Shiʿite passion plays (taʿzias), which were unappreciated at the time he formed the collection. ⁴
• Chig - Chigiani The Chigi library was the personal family collection of the Roman Chigi family, dating from at least the time of Fabio Chigi, Pope Alexander VII and it remained in the family until the 20th Century. The italian state bought th family house and collections at the end of WWI. In the preliminary stages of negociating the treaty between the Holy See and the the Fascist government, Pietro Tacchi Venturi convinced Mussolini to donate them to the Holy See in 1923⁵. It contains quite a number of beautiful manuscripts, including Chig.C.IV.111, a Franciscan-influenced Book of Hours decorated by the Workshop of the Master of Ippolita Sforza. More information on the calendar can be found in CoKLDB, and the start of the Lauds to the Hours of the BVM can be seen to the right, f.27v
• Comb - Comboniani This small collection of approximately 280 manuscripts are connected to Daniele Comboni or his congregation, the Comboni Missionaries of the Heart of Jesus. They are primarily in Ethiopic.
• De.Marinis - De Marinis Manuscripts from the personal collection Tammaro De Marinis. There are only 2 digitized MS from this collection, both from microfilm, but a partial listing on the contents in Kristeller's Iter Italicum, Vol 2.
• Ferr - Ferrajoli Originally the family library of the Ferrajoli family of Rome, these were donated to the Vatican in 1926. The family palazzo, designed by Giacomo della Porta in 1500 still stands in Rome and can be rented for private events.
• Legat - Legature Bindings, just bindings. Currently only two are digitized, both from Pal.Lat manuscripts
• Neofiti - Neofiti This was the library of the Pia Casa dei Neofiti/College of the Neophytes, which was added to the Vatican holdings in 1891. The college had been founded in 1543 by Pope Paul III for the education of Muslims and Jews, primarily, who had converted. For this reason it contains many Hebrew manuscripts, including the unique Targum Neofiti 1, often simply called the Neofiti Codex.

Notes

1. https://www.ibiblio.org/expo/vatican.exhibit/exhibit/e-music/Music_room1.html
2. Rome Reborn
3. Buonocore, M. (1988). "Miscellanea epigraphica e Codicibus Bibliothecae Vaticanae". III. Epigraphica, 50, 213.
4. Enrico Cerulli
5. Pietro Tacchi Venturi