Biblioteca statale del Monumento Nazionale Badia di Cava

The Biblioteca statale del Monumento Nazionale Badia di Cava or the State Library of the National Monument of the Abbey of Cava de' Tirreni, is a national library whose collection originated with works from the Benedictine abbey of La Trinità della Cava,located on Via Michele Morcaldi #6, Cava de' Tirreni, province of Salerno, region of Campania, Italy.

Hall of the library.

The library's origins come from the foundation of the abbey in the 11th century, when the abbey founded a scriptorium. The library lost many of its original collection during the 15th century. However, later abbots protected the integrity of the library, going as far as obtaining in 1595 a papal bull from Pope Clement VIII banning the extraction of books from the library. A further loss however occurred during a rock fall occurring on Christmas' eve in 1796. After the 19th-century suppression of the monasteries, the abbey had some degree of protection since monks were employed as custodians of the abbey.

The library contains 15,000 parchment pages including 65 codeses; 430 manuscript volumes; 25,000 loose manuscript documents; 120 incunabolae; 1,663 16th century books; 77,500 printed books; and 197 journals, of which 86 are current.

Among the treasures of the collection are a 9th-century Visigothic Bible (La Cava Bible), the 9th-century Codex legum Langobardorum (a compendium of the Ancient Germanic law of the Lombards; the 8th-century Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville, an 11th-century De Temporibus by Bede, and a 12th-century De septem sigillis by Benedetto da Bari.^[1]

References