Item talk:Q27430

Bodleian: MSS Canon.: “Matteo Luigi Canonici was born at Venice on August 5, 1727, and became a Jesuit in 1743. His natural bent was towards history and antiquities, and when Accademico of the college of St. Catherine at Parma he formed a first collection of medals and books, but in 1768, when the Jesuit order was suppressed in the kingdom of Naples and duchy of Parma, it was confiscated, Canonici, who had retired to Bologna, only receiving a small sum of money in return. Next he collected pictures, but this scandalized his superiors, and he was forced to get rid of them, obtaining in exchange a museum of medals. In 1773 a further supression of the Order took place, and Canonici retired to Venice, where he set himself to study history, and collected coins, statuary, printed books and MSS., chiefly during autumn journeys to Rome, Naples, Florence or elsewhere. He acquired for instance en bloc the collections of the duke of Modena, and the library of Giacomo Soranzo of Venice, which was itself partly derived from the Biblioteca Recanati. He always hoped that the Jesuits would be restored, and intended in that case to make them his heir, but eventually he died at Treviso (in October 1805) without making a will.

Canonici’s collections passed to his brother Giuseppe, and on his death in 1807 to Giovanni Perissinotti and Girolamo Cardina, who divided them. To the former fell the MSS., then about 3550 in number, and, after many attempts to sell them, the Bodleian became the purchaser of the greater part in 1817, for £5444 5s. 1d., or including incidental expenses about £6030, the largest single purchase ever made by the Library. The formal list of volumes handed over was signed on May 18, 1817, and the books probably arrived later that year.”