by P. R. Harris
© Oxford University Press 2004 All rights reserved
Libri, Guglielmo [Count Guglielmo Bruto Icilio Timoleone Libri-Carrucci dalla Sommaia] (1802-1869), scientist, book collector, and thief, was born on 2 January 1802 (or possibly 1803) in Florence, the son of Count Giorgio Libri-Carrucci dalla Sommaia (1781-1836) and Rosa del Rosso (c.1783-1849). His parents were legally separated in 1807 and his father spent much of the rest of his life in France, where he was convicted of forgery in 1816 and imprisoned until 1825.
In 1816 Libri entered the University of Pisa and after preliminary studies chose to specialize in law. He soon transferred to natural sciences, and took his doctorate in June 1820. In the same year he published a paper on the theory of numbers which later impressed Charles Babbage, and in 1823 he was appointed professor of mathematical physics at Pisa. In the following year, since he wished to travel to France to try to obtain his father's release from prison, he used the excuse of ill health to free himself from his teaching duties at Pisa. He retained his title and salary for the rest of his life.
In summer 1825 Libri returned from France to Florence, and during the next five years he published various scientific papers and developed an interest in the history of science which led in due course to his Histoire des sciences mathématiques en Italie (1838-41), his major published work. In 1830 he went back to France, where he apparently became involved in the July revolution. At the end of the year he returned to Tuscany where he participated in a coup which failed; he fled to France and settled in December 1831 in Paris, where he remained until 1848. He was naturalized in February 1833, in March was elected a member of the Académie des Sciences, and in November 1834 became professor in the calculus of probability at the Sorbonne. In 1837 he was appointed a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur and in 1843 he succeeded in becoming a professor at the Collège de France.
Libri had been a bibliophile since his youth, and his research into the history of science increased his interest in bibliography and palaeography. He became an ardent collector of books and manuscripts, and (though he denied it) a dealer in them. There were at least eleven auction sales of material from his collections between 1835 and 1846.
The provincial libraries of France contained rich collections including material confiscated by the state from religious institutions during the French Revolution, but these libraries were very badly managed. Libri had worked in a number of them and he drew attention to their unsatisfactory state, so when, in 1841, the government set up a commission to supervise the creation of a Catalogue général des manuscrits des départements, Libri was appointed its secretary. Between 1841 and 1846 he visited many of the libraries himself and took the opportunity to steal many items. Thefts by him have been traced at Dijon, Lyons, Grenoble, Carpentras, Montpellier, Poitiers, Tours, Orléans, and Autun. He also stole from the Bibliothèque Royale and the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris and the Archivio Mediceo in Florence. Sometimes he took whole volumes and sometimes leaves or quires; both manuscripts and printed books fell victim to him. He disguised the provenance of stolen material by altering inscriptions, erasing stamps, and rebinding volumes.
The first anonymous accusation that Libri was a thief was made in 1842, and in December 1845 the Paris prefect of police was told that his thefts were common knowledge. Libri decided that it was time to dispose of his collection and because of the dubious provenance of some of the material he thought it advisable not to sell it in France. So at the end of 1845 he wrote to Antonio Panizzi, the keeper of printed books at the British Museum, with whom he had been on friendly terms since the 1830s. Panizzi replied that most of the printed books offered for sale were already in the museum, but that he would refer the lists of manuscripts to his colleague Sir Frederic Madden, the keeper of manuscripts. Madden was excited by the descriptions sent, and in March 1846 the trustees of the British Museum agreed that Madden and his assistant keeper John Holmes should visit Paris to inspect the manuscripts. They were much impressed and Madden estimated that the collection was well worth £9000 (Libri was asking £10,000). On his return to London Madden was disconcerted when Thomas Rodd, a leading bookseller, warned him that Libri's probity was doubtful, and that he was suspected of having stolen some of the manuscripts which he possessed. Despite this Madden still wished to acquire the collection, and the trustees asked the Treasury for the necessary funds. At the end of August the Treasury refused a grant. Madden then tried to negotiate with Libri through the dealers Payne and Foss, but in 1847 the collection was bought by the fourth earl of Ashburnham for £8000. This saved the trustees of the British Museum from much embarrassment when it was later proved that many of the items were stolen property.
In February 1846 the Paris prefect of police received a further accusation that Libri had stolen from a number of libraries, and he referred the matter to Félix Boucly, the procureur du roi. In February 1848 Boucly sent a confidential report to the minister of justice, who communicated it to Guizot, the foreign (and chief) minister, a friend of Libri, who told him about the report but took no further action. Later in the same month revolution broke out again and Guizot fled to England. The report on Libri's activities was discovered in his office, and in March the new republican government began an investigation. Libri escaped to England on 29 February with eighteen crates of his most valuable books and manuscripts, and was welcomed by Panizzi and other supporters, including the mathematician Augustus De Morgan.
In August 1848 Libri printed his Réponse ... au rapport de M. Boucly, the proofs of which were read by Panizzi and Guizot. Panizzi urged Libri to return to France to defend himself in court, but when the case came to trial in June 1850 Libri failed to appear, and as no defence was presented he was found guilty and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. His name was erased from the rolls of the Légion d'honneur, the University of Paris, the Collège de France, and the Académie des Sciences. Libri refused to admit defeat and retained the support of his friends. Prosper Mérimée in particular campaigned on his behalf, but all attempts to rehabilitate him, including a petition submitted to the French senate in 1860, failed.
As soon as he arrived in London in 1848 Libri began to work in the reading-room of the British Museum. Madden's attempt to have him excluded failed when the trustees accepted Panizzi's testimony in favour of Libri. In 1850 Libri obtained British citizenship, and on 25 April he married Mélanie, née Double, the widow of Athénodore Collin; he had known her since 1832. Libri was a keen observer of British affairs, and knew people in many walks of life. He again became an active dealer in books and manuscripts, and Sothebys held ten auctions of his material between 1849 and 1865. He was skilled in enhancing the sale value of what he had to offer, and he developed the art of compiling what Bernard Quaritch described as 'puffing' catalogues to a high degree (Barker, 175). Despite this, and despite his thefts, Libri 'must be reckoned among the great collectors and manuscript scholars of his century' (Maccioni, 302).
Libri's wife, Mélanie, died in 1865 and two years later he married a young Englishwoman, Helen de la Motte. His financial problems were growing, and his declining health required a warmer climate, so in 1868 Libri left England for Florence. He settled in a villa at Fiesole, where he died on 28 September 1869. His widow erected a monument to him in the cemetery of San Miniato al Monte, where he was buried.
After his death Léopold Delisle, administrateur général of the Bibliothèque Nationale from 1874, proved conclusively that Libri had stolen many items from French libraries. The 166 items in this category which the fourth earl of Ashburnham had purchased from Libri in 1847 were in 1888 acquired by the Bibliothèque Nationale from Trübner, the Strasbourg bookseller, who had bought them from the fifth earl.
P. R. HARRIS
Sources
P. A. Maccioni and M. Mostert, The life and times of Guglielmo Libri (1995)
P. A. Maccioni, 'Guglielmo Libri and the British Museum: a case of scandal averted', British Library Journal, 17 (1991), 36-60
A. N. L. Munby, '"The earl and the thief" and "The triumph of Delisle"', Essays and papers, ed. N. Barber (1977), 175-205
G. Fumagalli, Guglielmo Libri (1963)
D. Varry, ed., Les Bibliothèques de la Révolution et du XIXe siècle, 1789-1914, Histoire des bibliothèques françaises (1991)
N. Barker, Bibliotheca Lindesiana (1978)
minutes of the trustees' general meeting, BM, CE 1/7, vol. 7
minutes of the trustees' standing committee, BM, CE 3/22, vol. 22
letters to Antonio Panizzi, BL, Add. MSS 36714-36736
F. Madden, diary, Bodl. Oxf., MS Eng. hist. c. 159-161
Archives
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MSS | BL, corresp. with Panizzi, Add. MSS 36714-36736
E. Sussex RO, Ashburnham MSS
Likenesses
Martini, lithograph, repro. in Maccioni and Mostert, Life and times
A. N. Noël, lithograph, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; repro. in British Library Journal, 17 (1991), 39
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