Discovering the treasures of the 46 State Public Libraries with Windows on Art and MiC

The forty-six State Public Libraries, including the two National Central Libraries in Florence and Rome, hold important historical collections that testify to Italian publishing production both nationally and locally. A documentary treasure that counts about forty million specimens that include manuscripts, printed editions, periodicals, codices, engravings, and prints. A patrimony that deserves to be known and studied in depth because it is a fundamental part of the history and culture of our country; through the precious books in its custody we can retrace the humanistic and artistic history of Italy, which has its roots in the monastic scriptoria of the Middle Ages and continues with the great humanists of the Renaissance courts, reaching the Age of Enlightenment and the post-unification period.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Culture, Windows on Art is launching a series of articles, forty-six in all as many as there are State Public Libraries, dedicated precisely to the iconic books they preserve. The goal of the project is to acquaint the public with the book, manuscript, codex, engraving, and drawing particularly significant to each state library. Each article, one for each institution, will in fact identify the main book kept here. The project will start on our pages in a few days and will last until the end of October: three in-depth articles per week on this theme will then be published.

We will begin with the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, which holds the Codex Amiatinus or Amiatine Bible: the oldest fully preserved manuscript copy of the Bible in its Latin version compiled by St. Jerome, of which it is also believed to be the most faithful copy. This will be followed by articles on Piero della Francesca ’s De Prospectiva pingendi preserved at the Palatina Library in Parma, the Magliabechian Codex at the National Central Library in Florence. And again, we will learn about Rembrandt’s etchings kept in the State Library of Cremona, delve into Leonardo da Vinci ’s so-called Self-Portrait kept at the Royal Library of Turin, and Machiavelli’s Manuscript of Florentine Histories at the Riccardiana Library in Florence. They will go to the Biblioteca Statale del Monumento Nazionale in Casamari (Frosinone) to learn about its Antique Collection, to the Biblioteca Estense Universitaria in Modena to learn more about Borso’s precious Bible, and to the Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina in Rome for the Leopardi collection. And finally to the Vittorio Emanuele III National Library in Naples to admire the Book of Hours of Alfonso the Magnanimous.

So follow us on this journey through the forty-six State Public Libraries to discover their most iconic books! An opportunity to learn more about the rich documentary heritage that belongs to their collections and our history.

Discovering the treasures of the 46 State Public Libraries with Windows on Art and MiC

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