Cosimo III's Library
Biblioteca di Cosimo III
The first substantial Medici collection of printed books and manuscripts (assembled systematically by the family) was subsequently formally organized into the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, which rapidly became an ornament of the city, more so than the court and the grand ducal family per se. Since the sixteenth century, the Medici had thus percieved the need for an additional, separate, private library, whose existence is attested by a 1588 manuscript catalogue dedicated to Pietro Usimbardi, and explicitly entitled 'Catal. Biblioth. Medic. Palatinae 1598 [sic]' on f. [III]r -- 'Catalogue of the Medici-Palatine Library, 1598' -- and elsewhere entitled 'Index eorum librorum qui privatim regalibus in aedibus Ferdinandi Medicaei S.R.E. Cardinalis et Magni Ducis Etruriae tertij asservantur'.
When Cosimo III assumed the grand-ducal throne, he undertook to consolidate the family's various library holdings into a single omnibus collection at Palazzo Pitti, although two great private Medici libraries (Cardinal Leopoldo's and Prince Ferdinando's) remained independent of the central collection; these latter were consolidated with the central family library in 1711 and 1713. This central collection was the library housed in Palazzo Pitti when Francesco Stefano of Lorraine was granted the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. His own library holdings were amalgamated with those of the Medici grand dukes, and the court library thus became the 'Bibliotec Medicea-Palatina-Lotaringia', the institution whose stamp appears throughout Florence. In 1765, Francis Stephen decreed that this library be opened to the public, and in 1771 his successor, his son Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, donated the collection to the Biblioteca Magliabechiana; a comprehensive inventory of the Biblioteca Medicea-Palatina-Lotaringia, undertaken in 1754, appears in Florence, BNC, MS Magliabechi V. 161.
Cummings, Anthony M., MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. XIX, 164?67.
When Cosimo III assumed the grand-ducal throne, he undertook to consolidate the family's various library holdings into a single omnibus collection at Palazzo Pitti, although two great private Medici libraries (Cardinal Leopoldo's and Prince Ferdinando's) remained independent of the central collection; these latter were consolidated with the central family library in 1711 and 1713. This central collection was the library housed in Palazzo Pitti when Francesco Stefano of Lorraine was granted the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. His own library holdings were amalgamated with those of the Medici grand dukes, and the court library thus became the 'Bibliotec Medicea-Palatina-Lotaringia', the institution whose stamp appears throughout Florence. In 1765, Francis Stephen decreed that this library be opened to the public, and in 1771 his successor, his son Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, donated the collection to the Biblioteca Magliabechiana; a comprehensive inventory of the Biblioteca Medicea-Palatina-Lotaringia, undertaken in 1754, appears in Florence, BNC, MS Magliabechi V. 161.
Cummings, Anthony M., MS Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Magl. XIX, 164?67.