Visit the Vatican Library…an Extremely Special Opportunity!

If you’ll be in Rome between now and January 31st 2011, you shouldn’t miss a very special opportunity to visit the Vatican Library for an opening they named “Conoscere la Biblioteca Vaticana: una storia aperto al futuro” (meaning “Meeting/Knowing the Vatican Library: a history opened to the future”).

The Vatican Library is an extensive collection of extremely important and extremely rare historical manuscripts, books, documents, coins and photographs.  To give you an idea, this includes original texts from Galileo, 3rd Century Papyrus with the Gospel of Luke and John, and a 15th Century edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy complete with illustrations by Sandro Botticelli himself.

Normally this is a library that only important scholars are granted a very special permission to enter (and this is no joke, a friend of mine had this privilege in writing her dissertation and it was by no means a place one could just stumble upon and enter).  After undergoing some major restorations (and being closed the past few years entirely), they are opening their doors to the general public, for the first time ever in history (that’s 550 years of history, to be more precise).

Don’t miss this chance!
When: Nov 11-Jan 31, 2011
Where: Braccio di Carlo Magno (St. Peter’s Square)
Times: Sunday-Thursday from 9:30 AM until 8:00 PM; Friday-Saturday from 10:30 AM until 9:00 PM
Phone: +39 06.698.96357
Book by emailing-  usp@orpnet.org  or  mostrabav@interclubservizi.it

Here’s a link to the Braccio di Carlo Magno’s own site for more information.