Sirleto, custodian of the Vatican Library, refused lections from its MSS.

to learned men, on the ground that they might seem to impugn the Vulgate.[134] For the same reason, the critical labors of all previous students, from Valla to Erasmus, on the text of the Bible were suppressed, and the best MSS.

of the Fathers were ruthlessly garbled, in order to bring their quotations into accordance with Jerome's translation.

Galesini takes credit to himself in a letter to Sirleto for having withheld a clearly right reading in his edition of the Psalms, because it explained a mistake in the Vulgate.[135] We have seen how Latini's Cyprian suffered from the censure; and there is a lamentable history of the Vatican edition of Ambrose, which was so mutilated that the Index had to protect it from confrontation with the original codices.[136] This dishonest dealing not only discouraged students and paralyzed the energy of critical investigation; but it also involved the closing of public libraries to scholars.

The Vatican could not afford to let the light of science in upon its workshop of forgeries and sophistications.
[Footnote 134: Dejob, _op.