Biblioteca Riccardiana
The Biblioteca Riccardiana is an Italian public library under the aegis of the Ministry of Culture, located inside the Palazzo Medici Riccardi at 10 Via de’ Ginori in Florence, in the neighborhood comprising the Mercato Centrale and the Basilica di San Lorenzo. Its main feature is preserving books collected by members of the Riccardi family and making them available in the very same rooms that were originally dedicated to that purpose. So, still today the library boasts the magnificent bookshelves, neatly carved and gilded, that create the atmosphere of a late-seventeenth-century patrician library, whose main features have all been kept intact.
Biblioteca Riccardiana
Address: 10 Via Ginori, 50123 Florence, Italy - Region: Tuscany
4,460 bound manuscripts, 5,620 unbound pages, 73,342 printed volumes, 725 incunables, 3,880 sixteenth-century editions, 258 periodicals.
Francesca Gallori
Adjacent to this library is the Biblioteca Moreniana; although attached to one another, these libraries have a different history. They are also two separate entities from an administrative point of view, as the Moreniana is under the aegis of the Florence City Council.
Index
The library boasts a considerable number of books, consisting of both printed volumes and manuscripts; the latter preserve many texts that have not been either published or properly catalogued yet. It is thus not unusual to make new discoveries when reading those sources. The Riccardiana currently houses 4,460 bound manuscripts and 5,620 unbound folios, which include collections once owned by such scholars as Giovanni Lami, Giovan Battista Fagiuoli, Lorenzo Mehus, and Mario Pieri. As for its printed books, the Riccardiana holds a collection of 73,342 volumes, including 725 incunables and 3,880 sixteenth-century editions.
The manuscript collection shows how the Biblioteca Riccardiana has managed to bring together a large number of extraordinary private libraries (mostly Florentine and Tuscan ones dating from the XV and the XVI centuries) that the Riccardi family bought over a long period of time. In doing so, the Riccardi purchased significant portions of book collections that originally belonged to such famous figures as Ficino, Landino, Bracciolini, Crinito, Fonzio, Nicodemo Francesco Tranchedini, and Benedetto Varchi or important families like the Pandolfini, Minerbetti, Nesi, Adimari, and Medici.
An inventory dating from 1632 informs us that the Riccardi library at the time consisted of almost 500 books (including both manuscripts and printed editions). A major change occurred when over 5,000 printed books and 249 manuscripts were added to the library at the death of Vincezio Capponi in 1688. That addition was part of the dowry of his daughter Cassandra, who married Francesco Riccardi; this increased the family's book collection substantially.[11] Meanwhile, Francesco, in addition to receiving the former Capponi library, increased his own family's collection by purchasing many books, mostly during his grand tour and while living in Rome from 1699 to 1705. Once back in Florence in the Via Larga family building, he commissioned the inventories of his own museum collections. The book catalogue was prepared in 1706 by the first Riccardi librarian, the priest Filippo Modesto Landi (d. 1756), who in 1733 was succeeded by Giovanni Lami (1679–1770). Eventually, Lami published in several installments – between 1744 and 1756 – what can be considered the first alphabetical catalogue of the Riccardi manuscripts.
Cosimo's four sons took after their grandfather Francesco regarding their passion for books. This was particularly the case with Gabriello (1705–1798). A clergyman – and, more specifically, a subdeacon – Gabriello played an extraordinary role both in increasing and preserving the family library. First of all, he decided to separate the library's destiny from that of its various collections; to that purpose, he made the library economically self-sufficient and open to the public during regular working hours, also allowing some books to be checked out.
Gabriello also reorganized the Biblioteca Riccardiana as we still see it today. As for the books that were given on loan to scholars from 1737 onwards, one can find detailed information in a handwritten register that is still preserved in the library (MS Ricc. 3481).[12] Gabriello not only bought books but also paid close attention to their looks by having them bound by artisans whom he knew personally and held in high esteem for their skills. Also, Gabriello's privileged relations with religious communities – due to his clergyman status – made it easier for him to purchase books frequently.[13]
The books that Gabriello bought were never classified separately; instead, they were all added to the existing collection. For this reason, unlike most public libraries, the Biblioteca Riccardiana is still today organized as a single collection and its books are not catalogued according to several different inventories. The current manuscript list is basically still the same as the one registered in the 1810 Inventario e stima.[14] On that occasion the two book collections making up the Riccardi library (one started by Francesco, the other by Gabriello) were merged – regardless of their origins – and organized according to the following progressive series:
From 1810 to the present the manuscript collection has been enlarged thanks to both acquisitions; it now consists of 4.460 exemplars.[15]
The drawings collection
The Biblioteca Riccardiana owns 276 drawings. The sketches and the illustrations still preserved in the library are the remnants of a patrimony that was originally a lot larger and richer, being part of that collection of famous paintings that made the Riccardi family understandably proud.[16] Some figure drawings are by Giovanni Battista Foggini, Giulio Campi, Bernardino Poccetti, Jacopo Chimenti (also known as “L’Empoli”), Anton Domenico Gabbiani, Giuseppe Zocchi, Pier Dandini, Jacopo Chiavistelli and other seventeenth-century Florentine masters, as well as architecture sketches by Domenico Cresti (also known as “Il Passignano”), the Valeriani brothers (Giuseppe and Domenico) and others.[17]
Donations
Over time the library's patrimony has increased thanks to both acquisitions and donations. Among the latter are the 134 volumes of precious miscellaneous materials that once belonged to Giuseppe Del Rosso (donated in 1831), Mario Pieri’s 55 manuscripts and his correspondence (1852), the rich collection of political papers bequeathed by Abramo Basevi in 1873, the letters (mostly on political and literary matters) thet Leopoldo Galeotti left to the Biblioteca Riccardiana in his 1879 will.
Among the twentieth-century donations are Niccolò Rodolico’s correspondence and books (which finally reached the library in 2019 after spending many years in deposit), those that once belonged to Renato Fucini and Giovanni Rosadi as well as the letters of Eleonora Duse and the drawings of Itala (also known as Mippia) Fucini.
The Riccardiana also owns the Collezione Segré and the Collezione Uzielli (mostly focused on Francis Petrarch and geography, respectively). Finally, the library preserves the collection that was once owned by fashion designer Sestilia Chiostri and her two sisters; it consists of drawings, sketches, photocopies, croquis, and photographs pertaining to this fashion firm’s activities from the 1920s to the 1970s.
Among the most remarkable works are fourteen nineteenth-century tablets in a Polynesian language (MS Ricc. 4125); written on both sides of tree bark, they report magic/religious formulas. Also, particularly noteworthy are three scrolls (in Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, respectively, now MSS Ricc. I-III). MS. Ricc 1071 contains one of the earliest books of Tuscan cuisine; it was dedicated to a “pleasure-seeking fraternity” known as I Dodici Ghiottoni (The Twelve Gluttons). Other manuscripts contain texts handwritten by Petrarch, Boccaccio and by some of the greatest Renaissance humanists (such as Pico della Mirandola, Leon Battista Alberti, Marsilio Ficino, and Agnolo Poliziano) or by famous artists like Piero della Francesca and Bartolomeo Ammannati.
No less impressive is the collection of theatrical texts, which features charming stage sketches, including some that were specially made for the Grand Duke Ferdinand III (MS Ricc. 2444), script notes for actors, comedy plots and other such extremely rare materials that help us shed light on staging techniques, theater production, and a number of related matters. The Dante section of the Biblioteca Riccardiana is also conspicuous, including such manuscripts as Ricc. 1005 (also known as “Riccardiano Braidense”), that is, a Bolognese copy of the Divine Comedy – decorated with miniatures – consisting of the first two books, i.e., Hell and Purgatory (Paradise is preserved at the Biblioteca Braidense in Milan instead) with Jacopo della Lana's commentary; MS Ricc. 1035 (for which see the brief description below) and MS Ricc. 1040, a fifteenth-century exemplar whose first page features a famous portrait of Dante, showing those physical traits that tradition has always ascribed to him.
In addition to manuscripts, the Riccardi also collected precious incunables, such as Manuel Chrysoloras’ Erotemata (maybe the first book ever to be printed in Greek), and famous editions, including Savonarola’s Bible (Ed. Rare 640) filled with notes written in his own hand.
Manuscripts
Printed books
Luca Giordano, The Mind understands the Truth, fresco, Biblioteca Riccardiana reading room.
Giuseppe Nicola and Tommaso Nasini, Hercules at the Crossroads or Hercules in the Garden of the Hesperides, fresco, Biblioteca Riccardiana, The Sala Esposizione.
The Biblioteca Riccardiana reading room
The Sala Esposizione.
The director's office seen from the library's balcony.
Giovan Battista Foggini, Bust of Vincenzio Capponi, Biblioteca Riccardiana reading room.
MS Ricc. 1040, f. 1v: Portrait of Dante.
MS Ricc. 492, c. 89r (Virgilio Riccardiano).
Ed. rare 120, f. 45r: Bartolomeo Ammannati's sketchbook (bust of Cosimo I de’ Medici wearing a classicizing armor).
