Not all classic creations that fell victim to barbarians and fire were lost and destroyed in that stormy era.
The best of the Turkish sultans, Mohammed II {Magomed II (1451-1481) - Turkish sultan.}, An adherent of the muses, sciences and arts, fell into his heart to collect and preserve the precious remnants of the ancient book culture of Byzantium, This ruler was above the prejudices and fanaticism of his people, a whole head taller than their contemporaries. He had a sincere piety for the book as such. Didn't it come from him that the Turks still retain some kind of pious reverence for the book in general?
Meanwhile, the West, in the person of Nicholas V {Nicholas V (? -1455) - Pope.}, Venerated the mysterious books of Mohammed II. Pope Nicholas V himself was the founder of the library, but not just any one, but the Vatican one; it seemed to him very appropriate to replenish the last of the precious book collapse of Byzantium. He even equipped in 1455 a special commission of scholars to the East for this purpose […]. He was especially keen on the original Hebrew manuscript of the Evangelist Matthew, which, as was heard, was kept in the book collections of the Byzantine emperors. For her, he even promised to give the finder a prize of the first category - ten thousand Venetian chervonets!
The prize was an enviable one, and scholarly hunters struggled to find the manuscript. And they found: he was in the mysterious Seraglio! But there was no way to scratch it out of there …
Moreover: in the seraglio there was such a treasure as the full decades of Titus Livy! Three educated travelers of the 16th century gladdened Europe with this message.
Undoubtedly, the Turkish sultans could tenaciously grasp this genre painter of Ancient Rome (Libya), since they considered themselves the successors of the Roman Caesars. There were even rumors that Titus Livy was being completely translated from Arabic into Turkish by the order of the Sultan. […]
The Duke of Tuscany promised the servant at the Seraglio for stealing this book treasure … five thousand Spanish piastres, and the Venetian ambassador even twice as many - and all in vain.
As it turned out, the seraglio contained a significant part of the famous library of the Hungarian king Matthew Korvin {Matthew (Matthias) Korvin (1458-1490) - the Hungarian king.} Taken by the Turks from his capital. The Corvinus Library was renowned for its exceptionally valuable collection of manuscripts of that era, unsurpassed in their interior merit and exterior decoration. Especially admired (for the thoroughness of the finishing) miniatures and various decorations in the text. This Matthew Corvinus, son of Gumiyad {Gumiad (Janos Hunyadi) (1387-1456) - ruler of the Hungarian-Croatian kingdom.}, Erected directly from the darkness of prison to his father's throne, […] was one of the most passionate bibliotes of his time. […]
Promotional video:
Matthew (Matiash) Corvin (1458-1490).
For the sake of the library, Corvin went to all the sacrifices, not sparing any means, Not even Ivan the Terrible could keep up with him in this regard. In a year he spent 80,000 ducats on his beloved "liberey" (more than 400,000 of today's chervonets). And so for 24 years! It is not surprising if she became a pretty penny for him during this time: 11,000,000 rubles for our money!
It goes without saying that Corvinus kept a whole staff of scribes in Rome, Florence and Venice to copy all kinds of creations of ancient authors and generously rewarded far-sighted travelers who thought of delivering him some book from Constantinople or from the East in general. […].
The entire XVI and XVII centuries. in Constantinople, many manuscripts circulated around the hands of the Turks, which were vying to buy up by Europeans, especially if they had a Sultan's visa. It meant: stolen from the seraglio! Many of these manuscripts were kept in various European repositories before World War II.
And there were also rumors about the seraglio that, among the seraglio rarities, there should also be the tragedies of Aeschylus and the comedies of Menander, and the life of Plutarch, which have not reached us. And even as many as 40 books of Diodorus of Siculus {Diodorus of Siculus (c. 90-21 BC) is an ancient Greek historian. The author of the essay "Historical Library", 40 books, 1-5, 11-20 have survived to us, the rest are in fragments.}! I saw them with my own eyes in the royal library of Constantinople in the last years of the Laskaris empire. It is impossible to doubt the eyewitness testimony, but that the whole of Diodorus is in the seraglio, skepticism is more than appropriate.
Thomas Palaeologus {Thomas Palaeologus (? -1465) - the youngest son of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II, despot of Morea (Northern Greece).} Also […] knew the value of books […]. Choosing books personally from the royal and patriarchal libraries for evacuation, could he not put in boxes, "showered with stones", first of all, Diodorus with his book children and such a brilliant environment? […]
Meanwhile, Europeans continued to be interested in the book secrets of the Seraglio. At the end of the seventeenth century. (1685) European envoys bought up as many as 185 manuscripts branded by the Sultan seal; but not a single book by the above authors!
The behavior of the Europeans aroused the suspicion of the Turkish authorities; measures were taken. Prices for branded books and manuscripts have skyrocketed. And not without reason: Sultan Ahmet III {Ahmet III (1673-1736) - Turkish sultan.} […] built a new […] book depository, where he transferred books from the seraglio. […]
Akhmet III (1673-1736) - Turkish sultan.
The building of a book depository by Akhmet gave rise to rumors about the opening of a secret library in the seraglio. The learned Europe was stirred up, many rushed to a new brave search for the lost. The mystery that envelops everything among the Turks only inflamed their imaginations more.
During the reign of Amurat {Amurat IV (1623-1640) - Turkish sultan.} Over the book secrets of the seraglio, being in Constantinople, Toderini puzzled. He managed to make sure that not only books in Arabic, Persian and Turkish, but also many books and manuscripts of Latin and Greek, in particular, exported from Jerusalem, were kept in the internal depositories of the seraglio, in special chests. […] Toderini compiled a complete catalog of the Seraglio library, which attracted everyone's attention. He did this with the help of a bribed Turk scholar, who in his youth was a Seral page and an official of the Seraglio. All books in Turkish and Arabic, including Aristotle and Pliny. But these latter books were not the only ones translated by the Spanish Arabs. It is known that in the academies of Harun al-Rashid {Academy in Baghdad, medieval university,where the exact and natural sciences, philosophy and medicine were taught, was created by the caliph Harun ar-Rashid (763 or 766-809). He also created the famous palace library. Harun's son, Caliph Al-Mamun, made the palace library public, adding it to the academy.} There were almost all the best works of Greek literature and other books, now lost to posterity, could have survived, albeit in translation.
However, not all of the books from the Sultan's seraglio entered the Akhmetov library: there were none of the manuscripts taken by the Turks from Hungary, but nothing proves that they were exterminated. Therefore, we must look for them in Moscow. Almost 50 years later, Mustafa III built another safe library a la Ahmet. It's hard to say anything about its contents. The French Republic commissioned the scientist Villoazon to carry out new research on the cherished secrets of the Seraglio, but to no avail.
The English were the first to be given the honor of infiltrating the Seraglio libraries. […] Sultan Selim was above prejudice, respected Europe and its science. Lord Elgin {Elgin (Elgin) - English general and diplomat, was an envoy in Istanbul.} Procured from Port {Port - the name of the government of the Ottoman Empire accepted in European documents and literature.} In 1801 permission to Dr. Carlyle Thomas (1795- 1881) - English historian and philosopher.} Examine the Seraglio book depositories. In the report of an eyewitness who penetrated under the supervision of three Turkish law teachers, little is said about library books: the presence of the Turks did not allow making an inventory. Yet 1,292 books are counted, all of them Arabic, Persian, and not a single Greek or Latin or Hebrew name.
The French ambassador Sebastiani urgently asked to visit the libraries of the seraglio, but Mahmoud refused his requests, although out of respect for Napoleon he ordered to find the Greek manuscripts in the seraglio and give them to him; one turned out to be an excerpt from Dionysius of Halicarnassus {Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2nd half of the 1st century BC) - ancient Greek historian. Author of the history of Rome in 20 books. We have reached 1-9.} (Now in the Parisian library). […]
The manuscripts found in the palace of the Byzantine emperors plundered by the Turks, undoubtedly, seemed to the sultans an object of high price and could remain in the depths of the seraglio without any use until our time. Manuscripts found in rich bindings or, better to say, in cases in which they were usually kept by the Byzantines, sometimes in boxes showered with precious stones, could become the subject of superstitious veneration of the Turkish monarchs.
The high price of books then stemmed not only from careful rewriting, but, as noted, even more from the very materials used in them. Homer […] in the royal library of Byzantium is painted all in gold. The gospel was bound in cast gold, weighing 200 pounds {pound equals 0.4 kg.}, And was also showered with precious stones. Many of Matvey Korvin's books were bound in gold boards; after his death Medici {Medici - an Italian family, known from the XII century, among them were merchants, money changers, usurers. Cosimo de Medici (1389-1464) was the first to reach a high position - he became the unofficial ruler of Florence. Later the Medici played an important role in the political life of Italy and France.} Demanded from his successor Vladislav {Vladislav V (1490-1516) - the Hungarian king.} 1,400 ducats (about 80,000 rubles for our money) for one Bible and 500 ducats for a prayer book. Even if the listed inventories of the books stored in the two libraries of the seraglio do not include Greek books; it does not follow from this that they were not and are not there. If they really are not there, then they are in Moscow!
But it is possible that the sultans did not intend them for the use of the faithful, Books, for example, obtained by the French ambassador from the seraglio, were not shown in any of the lists. A member of the French academy, Michaud, during his travels in the East in 1830, was instructed by the ministers Charles X to do new research on the Seraglian libraries and manuscripts. The political upheavals of France, however, did not allow him to take this matter seriously, but he remained deeply convinced that the most curious manuscripts should be kept in the Seraglio (or rather, in Moscow - the author's note).
“Perhaps our (a hundred years ago, - author's note) era, witnessing Turkey's aspirations to expose itself from the eastern mystery, is finally destined to see the fruits of the ancient genius, lost so many centuries; maybe some writer of Greece or Rome, buried in the Istanbul Seraglio, will be resurrected”(Basili K.) {Basili Konstantin Mikhailovich (1809-1884) - Russian diplomat, writer, was an envoy in Istanbul. Author of works on the history of the East.}. Undoubtedly, he will rise again, and not one, but a legion, but not buried in the Istanbul Seraglio, but in a Moscow underground cache! […]
Author: Stelletsky Ignatiy Yakovlevich