Charles Burney

The Present State of Music in France and Italy (2nd, corrected edition)

London: T. Becket and Co., 1773

Rome

or keepers of the books of the Vatican,
I should have been but little the better
for the permission which I had obtained.
For the MSS. in this celebrated library
are so numerous, and many of them in
such disorder, that to find the tracts I
wished, would have been a work of
years, had he not pointed them out*.
This gentleman employed five or six
whole days in making a catalogue for me
of all that the Vatican contained relative
to my work; after which I regularly
spent my mornings there, in reading
and marking such things as I wished to
have copied entirely, or from which I
was desirous of extracts; and these my
good friend the Abate undertook to
transcribe for me while I went to Na-
ples.