Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was the library’s founder. The nucleus of the present Vatican Library consists of Pope Nicholas V collection of ancient texts, some dating from medieval times, of more than 1,500 manuscripts. At the time of his death, in 1455, his collection was the greatest in Europe. Today, the Vatican Library houses more than 70,000 volumes of manuscripts, 100,000 individual autographs, about 7,000 incunabula, 100,000 engravings and maps, thousands of parchments, and tens of thousands of archival volumes and files.
Busts and statues of the Roman period, papal busts, terra-cotta models, exceptional Byzantine and Romanesque ivories, textiles and vestments dating to the earliest centuries of the Church, frescoes and ancient paintings by major artists, and the incomparable Treasury of the Sancta Sanctorum with it’s Medieval reliquaries—these are some of the glorious treasures that together form one of the great wonders of the world. These priceless works of art that have been accessible only to qualified scholars—UNTIL NOW!