Biographical overview
1843: Girolamo Contarini (906 manuscripts and 4,000 printed books)
Girolamo Contarini, son of Alvise II Pietro Contarini—knight, Procurator of St Mark’s and Librarian of the Library of St Mark—was born on 28 August 1770.
Little is known about his life beyond the date of his death in 1843, which marked the extinction of the last branch of the family.
Like his brother Alvise I, Girolamo left no heirs. He did, however, leave an extraordinary legacy: his entire large and valuable library, enriched over the centuries by the cultural interests and acquisitions of various members of the family. The collection, housed in the Contarini Palace in San Trovaso, comprised 8,365 volumes at the time of the testator’s death.
The bequest
The will, drawn up on 2 November 1839 and published in 1843 after his death, expressly stated that his collection was to pass to the “Public Marciana Library in full ownership.”
It further provided that the books already held by the Marciana were to be divided between the Patriarchal Seminary and the retreat established by the Conventual Friars Minor at San Tommaso, in the parish of Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari.
Extent and composition
Pietro Bettio, librarian of the Marciana, selected 956 manuscripts for the Library, which he classified as follows: “Council records 43; music 170; ducal 68; Venetian 406; Sanudo 38; Italian, Latin and various 228; Greek 3.”
He also retained approximately 5,000 printed volumes.
The library contained numerous historical works, chronicles, genealogies, and reports of magistracies—essential tools for a patrician engaged in the political life of the time. It also included 120 music codices formerly belonging to Procurator Marco Contarini (1632–1689), a noted music enthusiast, as well as works on architecture, literature, and navigation.
Among the more noteworthy codices—besides the chronicles of Daniele Barbaro, Domenico Malipiero, and Girolamo Priuli—are: Vite dei Dogi di Marin Sanudo, It. VII, 787 (=8178), eighteenth-century copy; It. IV, 492 (=5120): Atlas of Sixteen Nautical Charts by Battista Agnese (1545); It. IV, 491 (=5578): Le fogge diverse del vestire de’Turchi (16th cent.); and It. IV, 348 (=5117): Cristoforo Sabbadino, Trattato sopra la laguna di Venezia (17th cent.).
Inventories and catalogues
Three manuscript inventories document the Contarini Library:
- X, 220 (=6409): Catalogo della Libreria Contarini, eighteenth century, listing both manuscripts and printed works.
- X, 219 (=10055): Catalogo alfabetico delle opere a stampa della Biblioteca Contarini, eighteenth century.
- XI, 324 (=7135): Jacopo Morelli, Indice dei codici manoscritti di Casa Contarini a San Trovaso negli anni 1780 e seguenti, compiled in the 1780s and subsequent years (18th–19th cent.), with descriptions of 59 codices.
Two printed catalogues specifically concern the musical manuscripts:
- Filippo Filippi, Alessandro Stradella, e l’Archivio musicale dei Contarini alla Biblioteca di San Marco in Venezia [a proposito dell’opera:] Delle opere di Alessandro Stradella esistenti nell’Archivio musicale della R. Biblioteca Palatina di Modena. Elenco con prefazione e note di Angelo Catelani, Modena, 1866. Milan, Tipografia di Francesco Zanetti, [1866] (offprint from Il Politecnico, series IV, literary-scientific section, vol. II, pp. 433–451).
- Taddeo Wiel, I codici musicali contariniani del secolo XVII della R. Biblioteca di San Marco in Venezia illustrati da d.r Taddeo Wiel, Venice, Ongania, printed by the Visentini Brothers, 1888.
Further reading
- Marino Zorzi, La Libreria di San Marco, Venice, Mondadori, 1987, pp. 381, 383, 391.