On the 6th of March I went to see the library of the Vatican, which is contained in five or six rooms all communicating one with the other. There are many rows of desks, each desk having a great number of books chained thereto. Also, in the chests, which were all opened for my inspection, I saw many manuscripts, of which I chiefly remarked a Seneca and the _Opuscula_ of Plutarch. Amongst the noteworthy sights I saw was the statue of the good Aristides,[94] with a fine head, bald and thickly bearded, a grand forehead, and an expression full of sweetness and majesty. The base is very ancient, and has his name written thereupon. I saw likewise a Chinese book writ in strange characters, on leaves made of a certain stuff much more tender and transparent than the paper we use, and because this fabric is not thick enough to bear the stain of ink, they write on only one side of the sheet, and the sheets are all doubled and folded at the outside edges by which they are held together. It is said that these sheets are the bark of a certain tree, as is a fragment of ancient papyrus which I saw covered with unknown characters. I saw also the Breviary of Saint Gregory in manuscript, which has no date, but the account they give of it states that it has come down from one hand to another from Saint Gregory’s time. It is a missal not unlike our own, and it was taken to the recent Council at Trent as an authority for the ceremonies of our Church. Next, a book by Saint Thomas Aquinas, containing corrections made by the author himself, who wrote badly, using a small character worse even than my own. Next, a Bible printed on parchment, one of those which Plantin[95] has recently printed in four languages, which book King Philip presented to the Pope, according to an inscription on the cover. Next, the original manuscript of the book which King Henry of England wrote against Luther and sent fifty years ago to Pope Leo X.[96] It contains a subscription and a graceful Latin distich, both written by his own hand:-- “Anglorum Rex Henricus, Leo decime, mittit Hoc opus, & fidei testem & amicitæ.” I read both the prefaces, one to the Pope and the other to the reader. The king claims indulgence for any literary shortcomings on the score of his military occupations, but the style is good scholastic Latin. I inspected the library without any difficulty; indeed, any one may visit it and make what extracts he likes; it is open almost every morning. I was taken to every part thereof by a gentleman, who invited me to make use of it as often as I might desire.