The library, which belonged to Ivan the Terrible, the legendary Liberia, has been unsuccessfully searched for by scientists for over 400 years. It is believed that most of the valuable folios that fell into the hands of Ivan the Terrible were originally in the library of Constantinople (now Istanbul), which was taken out of the city in 1453 and given to the Pope for safekeeping.
It is likely that the Constantinople collection of books included the ancient scrolls of the richest and most ancient library of Alexandria.
Liberia was brought to Russia by Sophia Palaeologus, the grandmother of Ivan the Terrible, who is a close relative of the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI. To save the library from the devastating Moscow fires and pass it on to descendants, the princess ordered the construction of an underground book depository. So the ancient manuscripts and scrolls became the property of Vasily III, the son of Sophia, and then passed into the disposal of Ivan IV, known in the history of Russia as Ivan the Terrible. The prince replenished the family library many times and protected it from ruin.
What the legendary Liberia was like during the time of Ivan the Terrible is known from some surviving sources. There is evidence that a certain shepherd John Vetterman was invited by the tsar himself to this unique book depository with a request to translate the contents of the library into Russian. Wetterman flatly refused, seeing how large it was: he would not have been able to translate so many manuscripts in his entire life. It is likely that Vetterman compiled a catalog of books from the underground storage, which was later lost.
Historians believe that Liberia included at least 800 copies of the most valuable scrolls and folios, among which were rare editions of Virgil, Titus, Plato and Aristophanes, perhaps still unknown to the world. According to legend, the first gospels and ancient scrolls on occult sciences were kept in the library.
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Finding what remains of Liberia - all these priceless books - is now impossible. Presumably, the ancient collection of books is located near Moscow, in underground passages, the study of which can take many years. According to another theory, Ivan the Terrible, towards the end of his reign, moved the family library outside the capital, according to some researchers, to Vologda or the Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda.