University Library of Pisa

The University Library of Pisa was opened to the public in 1742 in premises located beneath the astronomical Specola on via Santa Maria, currently the home of the Domus Galilaeana. Since 1823, it has been housed in the 15th-century Palazzo della Sapienza, occupying the north-west wings of the main floor, where the user areas, reading rooms, and offices are located, as well as the south-west wings of the second floor, used as book storage.
The renovated and modernized library premises are not particularly significant artistically and architecturally, except for the two historic rooms, the Reading Room and the Reserved Room, which maintain wooden shelving.
The initial book collection was formed from the private library of Prof. Giuseppe Averani (1662-1738), received by testamentary disposition.
The original core was later enlarged with legacies, private donations, and the dismantling of libraries from suppressed religious corporations.
In 1757, about six thousand volumes belonging to the Florentine scholar Anton Francesco Gori, of archaeological and antiquarian interest, were purchased. In 1771, numerous works from the Medicea-Palatina-Lotaringia Library were assigned to the Library by the Grand Duke’s will. With the abolition of the Camaldolese Monastery of San Michele in Borgo, the manuscripts of Father Guido Grandi enriched the collection. Another eighteenth-century acquisition was the small but precious fund of the Botanical Garden.
Important and valuable 19th-century collections include manuscripts of the Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini (library director from 1835 to 1843), the numerous volumes acquired by testamentary disposition of the University Supervisor Angelo Fabroni, the collection formed at his own expense by Giuseppe Piazzini from 1820 to 1832, during his directorship, the philological collection of Michele Ferrucci (library director from 1848 to 1881), the more recent scientific libraries of Filippo Corridi and Sebastiano Timpanaro, the medical collections of Diomede Buonamici and Antonio Feroci, and the historical-literary collection of Prof. Alessandro D’Ancona.