NOTES ON THE MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY OF CARDINAL JOHANNES DE TURRECREMATA*
On September 26, 1468 Cardinal Johannes de Turrecremata died at his Roman residence, the Dominican convent of S. Maria sopra Minerva. In his lifetime the cardinal had been both benefactor and reformer of the house. Turrecremata' s last gift to the Minerva was the bulk of his private library. Turrecremata had employed that collection while writing polemics against conciliarists and heretics, or while composing devotional works. (Among the latter was a set of Meditationes based on the paintings in the new cloister Turrecremata had built for the a work which became the fust illustrated book printed in Italy) (x). The Minerva did not, however, receive all of Turrecremata' s library. At least one volume found its way into the library of Castel S. Angelo (Vat. lat. 5609 f. lr « Di Castello »). Other books had been sent to Turrecremata' s home convent, S. Pablo de Valladolid. That house too had been the object both of benefactions and of reforming labors (2). Yet other works may have been sold or dispersed (e.g. Vat. lat. 2675). Most of the known remnants of Turrecremata's library have found their way into the Vatican Library. Howevei, one (Robbins 68) has reached of California, Berkeley by way of Spain and England (3).
The articles of Meersseman and Kaeppeli on the library of the Minerva are solid foundations for any reconstruction of Turrecremata's library (4). However, it is now possible, by using internal evidence from paiticular volumes, to add several numbers to the list of codices is known to have owned. A chronological survey of acquisitions will be followed by a
* The original version of this paper was read at the Fifth Conference on Manuscript Studies, St. Louis October 1978. This brief study collects only the physical evidence available for the reconstruction of Turrecremata's library in the absence of a will or inventory. No further speculations are offered about the full extent of his collection.
(1) Johannes de Turrecremata, Meditationes ed. H. Zirnbauer (Wiesbaden, 1968) ; K. Binder, « El cardenal Juan de Torquemada y el movimiento de reforma ecclesiastica en el siglo xv », Reoista de teologia, 3 (1953), 42-65 at 60 ; V. Beltran de Heredia, « Noticias y documentos para la biografia de Cardenal Juan de », Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum [hereafter AFP] 30 (1960), 53-148 at 99, 107, 133-4.
(2) V. Beltran de Heredia, Historia de la reforma de la provincia de Espafla (1450-1550) (Rome, 1939), 3-10 ; J. M. Palomares IbAnez, « Aspectos de la historia del Convento de S. Pablo de Valladolid », AFP 43 (1973), at 109-16.
(3) A note inside the front cover says that this codex was bought in Spain by the Duke of Wellington (1906) and later sold by Sotheby's. The manuscript was sold to the Robbins Collection by Mr. Robert Strouse of California's Napa Valley.
(4) G. Meersseman, « La bibliothèque des frères prêcheurs de la Minerve », Mélanges Auguste Peher (Louvain, 1947), 605-31 ; T. Kaeppeli, «Antiche biblioteche domenicane in Italia », AFP 36 (1966), 1-70 at 60-3. For copies of Turrecremata's works carrying his marks of ownership, see J. Garrataschu, « Los manuscritos del Cardenal Torquemada en la Bibliotecha Vaticana », La ciencia tomista, 41 (1930), 188-217, 291-322. For volumes borrowed by Turrecremata from the library of Pope Eugenius IV, see E. Mûntz et al., La bibliothèque du Vatican au XVe siècle (Paris, 1887), 7, 9-12, 14, 17, 19, 31-2.
