Hosted in the Oratory of the Girolamini, contrary to the customs of monastic orders, which did not admit the public into their libraries, the Institute has been open to the public since 1586.
The Library is one of the richest in Southern Italy and the oldest among those in Naples, long frequented by Giambattista Vico. In 1727 the Oratorian fathers, on Vico’s advice, purchased Giuseppe Valletta’s Library, which included a rich collection of legal, philosophical, religious, and literary texts from the 17th and 18th centuries in Naples.
The Library, dependent on the Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities, is located in four magnificent 18th-century rooms and two modern rooms of the extraordinary monumental complex of the Girolamini.
It has a book collection of about 159,700 units including volumes and pamphlets, among which are 137 printed musical scores, 5,000 editions from the 16th century, 120 incunabula, 10,000 rare and valuable editions, 485 periodicals, an as yet undetermined amount of microfilms and portraits.
There are several collections that enriched the institute’s heritage including 5,057 volumes from the Agostino Gervasio Fund, whose texts cover archeology, numismatics, bibliography, and classical literature, the Filippino Fund, mainly of ecclesiastical history, sacred scriptures and theology, the Giuseppe Valletta Fund, containing rare editions from the 16th and 17th centuries consisting of Latin and Greek classics, history and philosophy, and the 940 volumes of the Valeri Fund concerning the history of Naples and southern Italy.
