Established in 1629 by the Venetian Republic as a “convenience” and “decorum” and “major ornament” of the University of Padua, it is the oldest university library in Italy. In 1631 it was moved from its original location, the Jesuit convent near Pontecorvo, to the prestigious Sala dei Giganti of the prefectural palace. The book increase had to be ensured by the mandatory deposit of a copy of everything printed in the territory of the Venetian Republic and by a tax imposed on graduates and newly appointed professors. A significant contribution during the 17th and 18th centuries also came from the acquisition of private libraries of the faculty, including those of the jurist Bartolomeo Selvatico (1631), the mathematician Bartolomeo Sovero (1632), the doctors Pompeo Caimo (1636) and Giacomo Zabarella (1646), the jurist Gianbattista Rainis (1725) and the botanist Felice Viali (1727). In the last decades of the 18th century, the library of the great anatomist Giambattista Morgagni, the naturalist Antonio Vallisneri, and the printed books from the Padua monastery of the Lateran Canons of S. Giovanni da Verdara, suppressed in 1783, were merged. Following the suppression of religious corporations during the Napoleonic era, a large quantity of manuscripts, incunabula, and printed books coming from the libraries of about 40 monasteries was absorbed, and in 1867, after national unification, there was a new substantial increase, with an overall increase of about 13,000 works. Between the 18th and 19th centuries, the library of the Natio Germanica was acquired, the most important among the corporations of foreign students in Padua. Among bequests, donations, and funds received between the 19th and 20th centuries, the Morpurgo collection (1,300 works concerning the history and literature of Semitic peoples) and the Ardigò collection (manuscripts of the positivist philosopher Roberto Ardigò and about 2,200 volumes belonging to him and his disciple Giovanni Marchesini, acquired in 1984) are finally worth mentioning. In 1912 the Library left the Sala dei Giganti premises, which had become completely inadequate, to occupy the current location, a state-owned building that was the first constructed in Italy with modern criteria specifically for library use.
Information about the University Library of Padua
Via S. Biagio, 7
35121 Padua (Padua)
0498240211
bu-pd@beniculturali.it
https://www.bibliotecauniversitariapadova.beniculturali.it/
Monday-Friday 8:30-19:30 Saturday 8:30-13:30
Source: MIBACT
