Biblioteca Ambrosiana

The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historical library in Milan, also housing the the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana art gallery. Named after Ambrose, the patron saint of Milan, it was founded by Cardinal Federico Borromeo (1564-1631), 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 illuminated Iliad, the Ilia Picta.