FROM THE COPYISTS TO THE PRINTERS
After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West (476 AD), abbeys became cultural centres that contributed to the transmission of classical texts.
It was in this way that most of Latin literature was still preserved, in spite of the fact that the relation between Christianity and classical culture was, at times, one of incomprehension or hostility. Moreover, both the twenty-eight public libraries and the famous library of Tivoli, of which Rome could still boast in the fourth century, had been destroyed.
The means to transmit culture were already taking shape in the form of monastic libraries or centres of learning.
The knowledge preserved in the Sanctuary of Hercules was thus inherited by the monks, who in the peace of the scriptoria copied a large part of the volumina, and thus handed down to posterity a knowledge of the classics. Famous among the monasteries that sprang up in Tivoli was the one annexed to the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. It was from there that Cardinal Ippolito II d'Este started out building his Villa, which thus stood on one of the sites dedicated to the transmission of ancient culture.
PAPYRI OF THE CHURCHES IN TIVOLI
One of the most important and ancient of the documents of Tivoli is the Regesto Tiburtino, a parchment volume written in the early years of the 12th century, with additions made in the second half of the century. The historical and technical importance of the codex consists in the fact that it represents a transcription by two scribes of the earliest documents of the town of Tivoli concerning the privileges of its church. This transcription was made directly from the originals written on papyrus and preserved in Archivio Vescovile (episcopal archive) of Tivoli. The work of transcription was also scrupulous in reporting any difficulties: "non ultra lectum est", annotated the scribe, who was unable to transcribe what had been irreversibly damaged in the papyrus original. The manuscript is illuminated with miniatures, some of them full page, executed almost certainly by the same amanuenses who copied the texts. The miniatures of the Regesto Tiburtino, displayed in this room, were realized by the Laboratory-Didactic Museum of the Ancient Book on papyrus, just like the originals.
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