Vatican Archives takes a long holiday !!

Written documents carry with them the past to the future generations. One of the Marvel's of Chinese changed the way future intellects would research. Each collection of an archive gives us a page of contemprorary times. Vaticn archive is no exception.

Vatican archives, said to be one of the World's best known collection of books is said to go into silence for 3 yrs. Reason sighted is the wearing foundation because of ever increasing books.
Started in Pope nicholas V in 1450's, todays boasts of more than 1.6M precious collection. This includes first handwritten bible during emperor constatine times. It seems intially the secret archives were open only to Pope & his men, but with Pope Leo XIII's grace scholars too have access.

Vatican libarary site states its Origin the following way :

"Evidence for the scrinium of the Roman Church, which was both a library and an archive, goes back as far as the fourth century. In the sixth century it was placed under the primicerius notariorum, and at the end of the eighth century, the first Cardinal Librarian of the Holy Roman Church was named, who also played the role of chancellor. For reasons which are still unclear, the earliest papal libraries and archives were dispersed in the first half of the thirteenth century"

Preamble of the secret archives stating that the shelves if lined up linearily would come to 85 km's speaks of the house volumes themselves !! One gets a feel that is not library in mere lexical terms, bholic intellectual palace.

Dan Brown's thriller Angels & Demon depicts that even Newton's comments on catholic church & much more secret archives lie undetected. As far a theological research is concerned, this is a treasure trove. Many authentic manuscripts make this place even
holier.

For one the vatican Library archive is a symbolic memory of reliogus thoughts of mankind & how they fogred together to make chrisitanity one of the largest accepted faiths today.
The rule of library - "Silence" , might not apply for 3 years 2010 when it re-opens.