University Library of Pisa

The University Library of Pisa was opened to the public in 1742 in the premises located below the Astronomical Observatory on via Santa Maria, currently the seat of the Domus Galilaeana. Since 1823 it has been housed in the 15th-century Palazzo della Sapienza, occupying the wings located to the northwest of the main floor, where the areas intended for users, the reading rooms, and offices are situated, and the southwest wings of the second floor, used as book storage.
The library premises, renovated and modernized, are not particularly significant from an artistic and architectural point of view, except for the two historic rooms, the Reading Room and the Reserved Room, which retain wooden shelving.
The first book collection was formed from the private library of Prof. Giuseppe Averani (1662-1738), received by testamentary disposition.
The original collection was increased in the following years with bequests, donations from private individuals, and from the dismantling of the libraries of suppressed religious Corporations.
In 1757, about six thousand volumes belonging to the Florentine scholar Anton Francesco Gori, of archaeological and antiquarian interest, were acquired. 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 its collection. Another eighteenth-century acquisition was the small but precious collection of the Botanical Garden.
Important and valuable nineteenth-century collections include the manuscripts of the Egyptologist Ippolito Rosellini (director of the library from 1835 to 1843), the numerous volumes acquired by testamentary disposition of the University Provisioner Angelo Fabroni, the collection formed at his own expense by Giuseppe Piazzini from 1820 to 1832, the period in which he directed the library, 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.