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�And when the night arrives,
I return home, and enter into my studiolum; and on the threshold
I take off that everyday costume, and put on royal and curial vests; and
thus I enter into the ancient courts of those ancient men, where I am
kindly accepted by them, and where I can feed upon that food that is
only mine, for which I was born; where I do not feel ashamed to speak
with them and ask them about the reasons of their deeds; and they
humanely reply to me; and for those hours I do not feel any dullness,
forget every affliction, I'm not afraid ot poverty, and not anxious of
death: I entirely rely upon them. (Machiavelli 1513)
In the studiolum, a space that was both
real and symbolic, the Renaissance and Baroque man cultivated his
intellectual activities. It was simultaneously a library, museum and a
private chamber where, in solitude, he could engage in a direct
conversation with the learned spirits of Antiquity and their great books
and images; the Studiolum also stored prodigious objects that expanded
the world further beyond the cares of everyday life.
This virtual
Studiolum is a meeting place for researchers where we offer all
of those books that the erudite men of the past might have desired. You
will find here a growing library of books from the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, which reproduces all of their words, annotated
and with the advantages offered by the digitalized text, presented on
monographic CDs:
emblem books, mythographies,
bestiaries, herbals, treatises on art and antiquities, geographies,
proverb collections, books of aphorisms and apothegms, galleries of
illustrious heroes, ancient coins and medallions, mirrors of princes and
of courtiers, handbooks of strategy and martial arts, dictionaries
and lexicons, reports on newly discovered lands and travels, editions of
ancient authors with commentary, miscellanies, enigmas, problems�
Thus, Studiolum offers books that are
hard to find, in spite of their clear connection with the great artistic
and literary works of the period, books housed in libraries with
restricted access or in editions that are difficult to locate.
Studiolum is involved with several
editorial initiatives. Some of the results will be made available in our
open library. In the section called silva
� a modest homage to the humanist art of the note and curious commentary
�
we will reveal some of the interesting discoveries made in the process
of elaborating the texts. It is our hope that the reader will enjoy
these as much as we have during the course of our efforts.
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