After the large libraries in the ancient world, such as the Pergame Library and the Alexandria Library, were destroyed for many years, the Imperial Library of Constantinople preserved nearly 1, years of precious ancient Greek and Latin characters.
Located in the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the library was built by Emperor Constantinople II about 357-353 BC. Because he realized that the early words written on papyrus had deteriorated.
In the writing room of the library, he entrusted the scribe to copy the books on papyrus scrolls to more stable materials, such as parchment or kraft paper, which was a hard process.
It is believed that the person in charge of copying was Themestios, directly under the management of Constantius II. Working under the supervision of the library, the bust (CC BY-SA 2.
) of Constantinus II and the Emperor Vallans (about 372 AD), he continued the efforts of his predecessor Constantinus II by employing four Greek and three Latin calligraphers.
Therefore, Most of the Greek classics we have today are learned through the copies of Byzantine from the Imperial Library of Constantinople.
However, some masterpieces are more popular than others.
Those who are engaged in the copying work spend a lot of time and energy copying the texts from papyrus to parchment to preserve what they think is the most valuable.
Old works like Homer and Greek history, Pay more attention to it than later Latin works.
Similarly, more famous names, such as Sophocles and his contemporary philosophers, are given priority over less well-known names, a marble bust that may represent Vallans, and some historians believe that the Imperial Library may have collected as many as 1, manuscripts. Some of them may have come from the library of Alexandria.
They were preserved after the fire that destroyed it.
However, the records of the destruction of the library of Alexandria are contradictory, and the knowledge about the contents of the imperial library of Constantinople is also scarce.
It is said that Alexandria had many books for a long time.
However, history has become complicated. Because it is said that the collection was moved to different places at different times.
The collection was given or destroyed.
Finally, when the Alexandria Library was destroyed, it was not clear what was left in the collection.
In fact, if the Royal Library of Constantinople held the proposed 1, volumes, This will be the largest knowledge of compiled characters in the western world in the early Middle Ages.
The Alexandria Library (public domain) is very similar to the Alexandria Library, and the history of the destruction of the Royal Library in Constantinople is hazy.
It is said that most (if not all) of the books were burned in a fire in 475 BC.
However, other sources reported that, Librarians Konstantius II and Te misty Oss worked tirelessly to rescue and reproduce the works lost in the fire.
It is reported that the subsequent fire caused greater losses to the collections in the library for more than a thousand years.
Similarly, Some people think that part of the collection was acquired by Charlemagne in the 8th century.
Although the courts in Charlemagne used similar books to create the Renaissance in the 8th and 9th centuries, it is not clear that these books were kept in the Royal Library of Constantinople. Or is it just a replica of the library in Aachen, Charlemagne, Charlemagne (left) and his eldest son Pepin's hunchback?
A 1th-century replica of a lost original about 83 years ago.
(in the public domain), in addition to fire losses, the building itself, as well as the collection, were damaged by attacks and wars. Including the Fourth Crusade in 124.
During the occupation of the city by Franks and Venetians, the imperial library was burned down, which probably destroyed a large number of books.
Historians noticed that after the fire ravaged Constantinople, there was no indication that there was an official imperial library at that time, and there was no source to mention the lost manuscripts.
This made people unclear what was lost in the fire. Or left something to be destroyed.
It is said that the big sack in 124 is one of the most profitable and disgraceful sacks in history.
It is believed that the Crusaders may have stolen and subsequently sold some rare Byzantine manuscripts. In 124, the fourth Crusader captured Constantinople (in the public domain), although it is not clear what survived and what was destroyed in these years. However, the library was indeed destroyed by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. When the city of Constantinople was captured, the library and any remnants in it were destroyed.
Although there were many reports about the surviving documents when the Ottoman Empire occupied the city, there was no conclusive evidence that the library was close to its previous glory at this time.
Moreover, in our time, No part of the library has been restored.
In the 19th century, Professor Carlyle, a doctor and an "Orientalist", was given the contents of the library occupied by the Ottoman Empire after his visit.
However, he concluded that there is not enough evidence in any literature to trace back to the Imperial Library in Constantinople, which is a page in Archimedes' memoirs.
However, The Archimedes palindrome (CC BY 3.
) is an anomaly in the text * * * after the Ottoman conquest.
It surfaced in 184, was translated in 1915, was inexplicably found in a private collection, and was sold in 1998.
This book was originally a Greek version of Byzantine in the 1th century. It is the work of Archimedes of Syracuse and other writers.
It is the only known copy of "blowhole", "mechanical theorem and method" and "floating body" in Greek.
This article may be the only evidence that the library of the Imperial Library did exist in the Ottoman Empire to some extent, and further extended to our time.
Above: Crusaders attacked Constantinople, Excerpted from the historical manuscript of Geoffrey de Verhuddin in Venice.
In the field of * * *, written by Veronica Parks, she recently graduated from medieval and ancient Mediterranean studies. Wilfrid Laurel University Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
During my research, I was a research assistant of a history professor, including the transcription and translation of medieval Latin, and the collection and reading of Mor.