LAUSR

This essay focuses on Pope Alexander VII’s predilection and talent for books and libraries—his private library, the Vatican Library, and the Alessandrina Library, specifically the Sapienza University. Despite the large number of studies often dedicated to specific aspects of his diplomatic mission in Europe, Alexander VII’s milieu has in many regards not yet been fully explored. A complete investigation of his intellectual life—including his mother’s and his uncle’s roles in his Sienese education, the first steps in his Roman career, and his friends and collaborators—is still lacking. The contribution to the Biblioteca Vaticana of 1779 manuscripts from the Urbino Library, the care of his Chigiana Library, and the foundation of the Sapienza University Library in Rome reflect his multidisciplinary interests and his relations with the most celebrated intellectuals, poets, and savants around him, including Pietro Sforza Pallavicino, Lucas Holstenius, Athanasius Kircher, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Leone Allacci, Ferdinando Ughelli, Giano Nicio Eritreo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Francesco Borromini.