The library's origins date to 1758, when the archdeacon and local economist Sallustio Bandini donated his library to the University of Siena, on the condition that it grant public access. The university at this time lacked a formal library. In 1774, the library already included 13,000 objects. In 1798 an earthquake closed the library; it soon reopened but was closed by the French in 1808, along with the University of Siena. The library was restarted by the commune in 1810,[2] and amassed further manuscripts from the suppressed convent of Sant'Agostino.
The collection over the centuries has been greatly enhanced by additional donors, including the manuscripts and designs owned by Giuseppe Ciaccheri (1724-1804), pupil of Bandini, and the first librarian of the collection. In 1786 the library received works housed in the Santa Maria della Scala (Siena), among them the precious Byzantine lectionary Gospels (designated by ℓ283 on the list Gregory-Aland) already part of the treasure of the same institution (X. IV. 1).[3] In 1866, the editor Giuseppe Porri left to the library his collection of stamps, signatures, coins, medals and signature seals. In 1932 the podestà of Siena, Fabio Bargagli Petrucci, became the administrator and added his collection of public documents, christening it with the name "Intronati", in memory of the Accademia degli Intronati of the 18th century.
Atop the entrance to the Historical Reading room of the library is a plaque with the six statutes of the old Accademia in Latin:
Deum colere (Revere God)
Studere (Study)
Gaudere (Rejoice)
Neminem lædere (Damage nobody)
Nemini credere (Believe nobody)
De mundo non curare (Worry not about the world).
In the 1990s reconstruction led to designation of a specific hall. Some material of the Museo archeologico nazionale was transferred to the former monastery adjacent to Santa Maria della Scala.[4]
Collectionedit
In 1935 the collection of the library was estimated at 120,000 volumes, 86,000 brochures, 820 incunabula, 5,226 manuscripts, 20,000 autographs, and stamps. Currently, the library's collection of printed books and manuscripts is estimated at over half a million units. The archive of the library is divided in twenty-nine series.[3] Special value have documents from the time of Renaissance and Reformation.[5]
Giuliano da Sangallo’s Sienese (ms. S. IV. 8) drawings and manuscripts made by the hand of Antonio di Pietro Averlino called Filarete (Trattato di architettura civile, ms. L. V. 9)
Francesco di Giorgio Martini (Trattato d’architettura civile e militare, ms. S. IV. 4, and others) Notebooks with architectural and military designs
Drawings and designs by Baldassarre Peruzzi and his school (the so-called Taccuino senese di Baldassarre Peruzzi, ms. S. IV. 7, and others)
Libro d'ore fiorentino miniato da Filippo de' Corbizzi (1494)
Bust of Federigo Tozzi, by Ercole Drei on reading room.
Referencesedit
^"(Comune: Siena)". Anagrafe delle biblioteche italiane [it] (Registry of Italian Libraries) (in Italian). Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico. Archived from the original on 7 January 2019. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
^Toscana. Guida d'Italia (Guida rossa), Touring Club Italiano, Milano 2003. ISBN 88-365-2767-1 Scheda su Biblioteca comunale degli Intronati su Anagrafe delle biblioteche italiane, Istituto centrale per il catalogo unico.
^Catherine of Siena, the Dialogue, ed. Suzanne Noffke, Paulist Press, 1980, p. 190.
^Amelang, James S. The flight of Icarus, Stanford University Press, p. 307. ISBN 978-0-8047-3340-3
^Jervis, Alice (1927). A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516 by Luca Landucci Continued by an Anonymous Writer till 1542 with Notes by Iodoco del Badia. London: J.M.Dent & Sons Ltd.
Bibliographyedit
Ennio Sandal (1990). "Endowed Municipal Public Libraries". Libraries & Culture. 25 (3: Libraries and Librarianship in Italy). USA: 358–371. JSTOR 25542275.
External linksedit
Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati Istituzione del Comune di Siena
Biblioteca Comunale degli Intronati at the European Architectural History Network