Biblioteca Ambrosiana

The
Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic
library in
Milan,
Italy, also housing the
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery. Named after
Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded in 1609 by Cardinal
Federico Borromeo, whose agents scoured Western Europe and even
Greece and
Syria for books and manuscripts. Some major acquisitions of complete libraries were the manuscripts of the Benedictine
monastery of Bobbio (1606) and the library of the Paduan
Vincenzo Pinelli, whose more than 800 manuscripts filled 70 cases when they were sent to Milan and included the famous ''
Iliad'', the ''
Ilias Picta''.
Provided by Wikipedia