Vidivici Occhiali acquires the license for 'The Vatican Library Collection'

The Italian company VidiVici Occhiali has recently obtained from 1451 International a sub-license to create, manufacture and sell frames and readers branded 'The Vatican Library Collection'.

VidiVici Italia is conceiving an elegant and refined collection that will be featured by sophisticated details. The frames will be supported by a beautiful packaging kit that will be personalized with wonderful images sourced by the Vatican Library archive. The official launch of this extraordinary collection is planned for the next October.

The Vatican Library, or 'Bav' (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana) has been accessible to church officials and scholars since its inception in 1451 by Pope Nicholas V for the 'convenience of the learned'. Located in the Cortile Del Belvedere in Vatican City, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe.

The Bav contains 1,600,000 printed works (including 8,300 incunabula); some 75,000 Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Ethiopian, Syriac, unique and illuminated manuscripts from the second century A.D. onward; 65,000 archival volumes in twenty-three collections, and 40,000 prints, engravings etchings, drawings and maps. While many of these works are religious in nature, secular works in the liberal arts and sciences make up the majority of the library's collection. Among these works are the Palatine Virgil, the letters of King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, autographed works of the Italian poet Petrarch, and original working-sketches and letters of Michelangelo, and Botticelli illustrations of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Throughout the Renaissance, the Vatican Library acted as a catalyst for scientific and geographic advancement. Within the library's walls are ancient timepieces, scientific instruments, navigational tools, stellar and terrestrial globes, coveted maps of the old world and, of course, intricate maps of the new world (Christopher Columbus was born in the 1451, the year of the library's founding).