Today, Benedict visited the Vatican Library, which has been in the news lately because of a 3-year shutdown that will begin in July. The closing has caused much distress to scholars, as detailed by the NYTimes here
Since the Vatican announced the impending shutdown, dozens of scholars have been lining up each day at ever earlier hours to snatch one of the 92 available spots in the manuscript room, where they can pore over archaic texts in forgotten languages. The library staff,
traditionally prompt in responding to requests, has been struggling to keep up with the demand.
“We’re kept waiting like the virgins in the Gospel for their bridegroom to come,” Lucas Van Rompay, a professor of religion from Duke University who specializes in Eastern Christianity, said jokingly. He was referring to Jesus’ Parable of the 10 Virgins, a lesson on maintaining faith, after two particularly frustrating mornings of his own. “It’s getting worse every day.”
Like the British Library and the National Library of France, the Vatican has one of the most important manuscript collections in the world. The prospect of being cut off from their sources with crucial research under way is sowing panic among visiting scholars.
“It’s tragic,” said Barbara Roggema, a scholar who is leading a three-year study on Christian-Muslim relations during the Middle Ages for the University of Birmingham in England and had counted on continued access to the library, which is to close on July 14.
Petitions addressed to Pope Benedict XVI, the ultimate authority on Vatican matters, are circulating among scholars. Some ask that the manuscript division at least remain accessible to the public during the three-year renovation. Others request that the closing be delayed until 2008 so that scholars will have time to wrap up research and meet publishing or teaching deadlines.
The Pope is scheduled to visit the library on Monday, according to Ambrogio Piazzoni, the library’s vice prefect. “He wants to understand what’s going on,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Piazzoni said that close examination of the 16th-century wing of the library had revealed dangerous structural weaknesses. Because of the way the wing is laid out, he added, reinforcing the foundations and floors requires that the entire building be closed.
Engineers say that the sooner the work begins, the better, he added. “We couldn’t wait for the palazzo to crumble,” Mr. Piazzoni said.
But what seems to worry Dr. Roggema and other scholars most is that “when Italians say three years, in reality it’s going to be much longer.”
Here is the text of the Pope's formal talk is here. In Italian.
Pope Benedict XVI visited the Vatican library Monday and revealed he had hoped to end his church career there conducting research.
"I confess that when I turned 70 (10 years ago), I would have so much desired that the beloved John Paul II would allow me to dedicate myself to study and research" on documents in the library, Benedict said.
Instead, Benedict added, "the Lord had other plans for me."
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