the last book of the imperial library of constantinople

7/27/2019 The Last Book of the Imperial Library of Constantinople

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Sunday, September 23, 20121

The Last Book from the Last Library

Dj vu: According to historianSusan Wise Bauer, this is:The Taking of Constantinople, 1453 by Palma ilGiovane [Iacopo Nigreti (c. 1548-1628), who worked alongside Tintoretto], 17th century; very similar to paintings by

two Tintorettos (father and son). Image Source: Wiki[the title is quoted on Wiki as The Taking of Constantinople, 1204,

othersources agree].

2012 is a year when many people are thinking about the apocalypticunthinkable. But this is no new thing. People have been thinking about the end of the world, orat least of cataclysmic change, for as long as they have been thinking about the world. Most of 2012'sfears are couched in terms of war, rogue phantom planets, spiritual, religious, political or cosmicdangers. In the Information Age, the one thing we never consider is that our accumulated knowledgecould be obliterated.

1http://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.ro/2012/09/the-last-book-from-last-library.html (accesat 5.06.2013)
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The Crusaders' Conquest of Constantinople in 1204, by Domenico Tintoretto ((1560-1635) son of thefamous artist(1518-1594, who painted anothersimilar painting). Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale), Venice, Italy, 16th century.

Critics scoff at the 2012 fearful, but the loss of almost everything we are and know is not implausibleand should at least be understood in terms of historical precedents.

There is a reason why many dystopian futuristic stories and films commonly have some lone character- a post-apocalyptic historian - who has holed up with the remains of pre-apocalyptic books, paintingsand other cultural artifacts. You can see that theme in several modern graphic novels, fiction and sci-fimovies:Logan's Run, V for Vendetta,Ever Since the World Ended,A Canticle for Leibowitz.

The reason these fearful depictions are so compelling is that they are based on historical facts. Wepossess submerged memories of other times when vast bodies of human knowledge were wiped out,irretrievably and forever.

This post is about the one surviving book that comes directly to us from the last library of the

ancient world. Of course, there are many ancient texts that have survived through copies andarchaeological reconstructions. But this is apparently the only text which can be directly traced to acollection at the Imperial Library of Constantinople.

Consider my earlier post that archaeologists are determining that there may be around 100,000 years ofunrecorded human history. Much of that would have been primitive; but it is wrong to assume thatthese eras lacked thinkers and artists.

Whatever had been preserved of that vast body of earlier knowledge was kept in the great libraries at
http://www.susanwisebauer.com/blog/production/cover-ideas-for-the-history-of-the-renaissance-world/http://www.susanwisebauer.com/blog/production/cover-ideas-for-the-history-of-the-renaissance-world/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_Tintorettohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_Tintorettohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_Tintorettohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_Tintorettohttp://www.museumplanet.com/tour.php/venice/dp/94http://byzantineee.blogspot.ca/2011/01/fall-of-constantinople-paintings.htmlhttp://byzantineee.blogspot.ca/2011/01/fall-of-constantinople-paintings.htmlhttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2012/08/times-outside-history-9-modern-human.htmlhttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2012/08/times-outside-history-9-modern-human.htmlhttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ioySBj4qK8g/UFDUO_aYmMI/AAAAAAAAH3s/kW-rmZFJ1xU/s1600/untitled.pnghttp://www.susanwisebauer.com/blog/production/cover-ideas-for-the-history-of-the-renaissance-world/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_Tintorettohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacopo_Tintorettohttp://www.museumplanet.com/tour.php/venice/dp/94http://byzantineee.blogspot.ca/2011/01/fall-of-constantinople-paintings.htmlhttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2012/08/times-outside-history-9-modern-human.htmlhttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2012/08/times-outside-history-9-modern-human.html


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Alexandria and Constantinople. In 300 BCE, the library at Alexandria was the largest repository ofrecorded information in the ancient world, holding between 400,000 and 700,000 papyrus rolls, whereeach roll would be equivalent to one, or more than one, modern book. The library wasburned down,afterAlexandria fell out of the hands of the Greeks. It waspossibly destroyed accidentally by JuliusCaesar(48 BCE). Others blamed for the library fire are Aurelian in the 3rd century CE;PatriarchTheophilus of Alexandria (391 CE); and Caliph Umar of Damascus, during or after the Muslimconquest of Egypt in 642 CE. The Council on Library and Information Resourcesremarks:

Certainly some of the lost literature was deliberately and systematically destroyed. A quiteunhistorical, but probably apt, story comes to us through the Norwegian humorist, Nils Kjaer. At thetime of Caliph Omar's invasion of Egypt, the Arab officer on duty in the destruction of the library ofAlexandria used two stamps with which he marked the books. One said: "Does not agree with theKoran--heretic, must be burned.The other said: Agrees with the Koran--superfluous, must be burned.Earthquakes and floods in the Middle Ages submerged the library's site under water, so thatarchaeologists cannot identify precisely what happened there.

The Great Library of AlexandriabyO. Von Corven (19th century: an artistic rendering based on some archaeological

evidence). Image Source:Wiki.

What we know of early human knowledge comes from surviving bits of tablets and scrollsfrom several ancient libraries, from archaeological sites, and above all from copies of copies,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Library_of_Constantinoplehttp://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=152http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Alexandria#Ptolemaic_erahttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2010/07/times-outside-history-3-visions-of-eras.htmlhttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2010/07/times-outside-history-3-visions-of-eras.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_of_Alexandriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_of_Alexandriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_of_Alexandriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Syria#Conquest_Under_Caliph_Umarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Egypthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Egypthttp://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/bellagio/bellag1.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Corvinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Corvinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancientlibraryalex.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancientlibraryalex.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_libraries_of_the_ancient_worldhttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/-pxcIRjIwYxg/UFDxpg-HoXI/AAAAAAAAH6c/NM-jSU9KJ7k/s1600/Ancientlibraryalex.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Alexandriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Library_of_Constantinoplehttp://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=152http://www.bede.org.uk/library.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Alexandria#Ptolemaic_erahttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2010/07/times-outside-history-3-visions-of-eras.htmlhttp://historiesofthingstocome.blogspot.com/2010/07/times-outside-history-3-visions-of-eras.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurelianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_of_Alexandriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_of_Alexandriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Syria#Conquest_Under_Caliph_Umarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Egypthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Egypthttp://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/bellagio/bellag1.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Corvinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ancientlibraryalex.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_libraries_of_the_ancient_world


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preserved through the Middle Ages. Aside from Alexandria's collection, significant portions of otherlibraries' holdings were lost. For example, the library of Pergamum's collection was compromisedwhen Mark Antony gave Cleopatra all of Pergamum's 200,000 volumes to the library of Alexandria asa wedding present in the mid-30s BCE (this account conflicts with the theory that Caesar had already

burned down the library at Alexandria); and those texts were subsequently lost in the Alexandrian fire.

Thus, the last great repository of early knowledge was situated in Byzantium, in the old Eastern

Roman Empire, forerunner to the lands divided by Habsburgs and Ottomans. The capital of theByzantine Empire, Constantinople (now Istanbul), featured a librarywhich held the collected writingsof the ancient world. Founded by Constantius II (reigned 337-361 CE), the Imperial Library atConstantinople copied and preserved information for 1,000 years, after all its predecessor libraries had

been destroyed. In a time when our computers are rendered obsolete every 18 months or so, a 1,000yearspan of data preservation is worth contemplating.

Siege and plunder of Constantinople, 1204, Fourth Crusade. Video Source:Youtube.

The library at Constantinople was damaged and finally obliterated in three separate fires: in 473 CE, afire destroyed 120,000 volumes, although some damaged works were recopied and hence have come

down to us; in 1204, the knights of the Fourth Crusade destroyed a large portion of the library'sholdings (see video above); then in 1453, the forces ofMehmed II, Sultan of the Ottoman Turks,captured Constantinople and destroyed the library completely.

Despite reports that parts of Constantinople's collections were saved, these groups of texts have notbeen found. Wikihas an interesting footnote about the last book that was saved from the ImperialLibrary at Constantinople; it is called the Archimedes Palimpsest:Whilst there were many reports of surviving texts into the Ottoman era, no substantive portion

of the library's has ever been recovered. Professor Carlyle was provided access in 1800 to theSeraglio, the supposed repository of post-Ottoman conquest surviving texts, but no texts from theImperial Library were located. A notable exception is the Archimedes Palimpsest, that surfaced in

1840, was translated in 1915 and was unaccountably found in a private collection and sold in1998.TheArchimedes Palimpsestis a 10th century codex, a hand-written bound book prepared prior to theinvention of printed type. It is also a palimpsest, meaning it has several texts written on top of eachother, which have never been seen anywhere else. It includes copies of much earlier mathematicaltreatises by Archimedes (c. 287 BCEc. 212 BCE) (listed here), which were overwritten with religioustexts in the 13th century. Other texts have later come to light with enhanced imaging techniques.

In the 1840s, a biblical scholar, Constantin von Tischendorf, tracked the codex down in Constantinopleand brought home a page from the book, which is now in Cambridge University's Library. Parts of thecodex were photographed by Johan Heibergin the first decade of the 20th century.

After that, the codex disappeared from Constantinople under mysterious circumstances. It ended up inFrance, and sat in a Paris apartment from the 1920s until 1998. It then became the focus of a court casein New York, the Greek OrthodoxPatriarchate of Jerusalemv. Christie's(a description of the case ishere: Greek Orthodox Patriarchate v. Christies, Inc., No. 98 Civ. 7664, 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13257(S.D.N.Y. Aug. 30, 1999)):The Archimedes Palimpsest, a tenth-century manuscript that once belonged to the Greek OrthodoxPatriarchate of Jerusalem, entered the collection of a French civil servant sometime in the 1920s underunknown circumstances. In 1998, the civil servants heir, Anne Guersan, consigned the palimpsest forsale at Christies auction house in New York. The Patriarchate brought suit to recover the work inFederal District Court, but its claim was defeated based both on the application of a French statute oflimitations and on the principle oflaches since it did not seek return of the work in a timely manner.The judge decided in favour of Christie's; and the codex was sold to an anonymous buyer for USD $2million: "Simon Finch, who represented the anonymous buyer, stated that the buyer was 'a privateAmerican' who worked in 'the high-tech industry', but was not Bill Gates. (The German magazineDer
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Spiegelreported that the buyer is probablyJeff Bezos.)" Bezos is the founder and CEO ofAmazon.com.

Report on restoration of the codex. Video Source: Youtube.

From 1999 to 2008, the codex was studied and conserved and digitized by experts at the Walters ArtMuseum in Baltimore, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. New imaging

techniques found another text in the palimpsest by Alexander of Aphrodisiasand confirmed yetanother text in the palimpsest by Hypereides. You can see a description of the codex's contents here.The saga completes: "On October 29, 2008, (the tenth anniversary of the purchase of the palimpsest atauction) all data, including images and transcriptions, were hosted on the Digital Palimpsest Web Pagefor free use under a Creative Commons License, and processed images of the palimpsest in original

page order were posted as a Google Book."

TheArchimedes Palimpsest. See more images of the codex, with its overlapping texts, here.

The palimpsest project's site ishere; you can read part of the Archimedes texts in the palimpsest,Geometrical Solutions Derived from Mechanics, in English translation here. You can look at the

Archimedes Palimpseston Google Books here.

Imagine how different the history of the world would have been had the Alexandrian orConstantinople libraries' holdings been preserved! These are the ultimate unasked questions aboutlost information in an Age of Information: how do we know what we no longer know? And what

kind of people would be if we knew what we have lost and forgotten?
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the last book of the imperial library of constantinople

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