Melozzo da Forlì, Sixtus IV Appointing Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library (1477)

The humanist and papal biographer Bartolomeo Sacchi, called Platina, was appointed the first prefect of the Vatican Library in 1475. Pope Nicholas V (r. 1447-55) had envisioned creating a public library in Rome, as part of his efforts to rebuild the eternal city and make it the true centre of European life. This project was finally realised by Sixtus IV (r. 1471-84), and was commemorated in this fresco, formerly in the original library, and now transferred to canvas. The library was meant to glorify the Papacy, but also Sixtus’s family: apart from the pontiff and Platina, the other personages in Melozzo’s painting are the pope’s della Rovere and Riario cousins; the man standing in the centre is the future Julius II.  Platina points to the inscription below, which he wrote, and which praises Sixtus’s public works – churches, a hospital, walls, a bridge, an aqueduct: ‘Yet the city is further in your debt, for the library that languished in squalor is now to be seen in a place of renown.’

Credit: Oren Margolis (July 2018)