The National Library
of Naples
Before
the unification of Italy, each state on the peninsula,
obviously, had its own libraries. After unification,
Florence was designated as the first city in Italy to hold
a national library; then, when Rome was added to the
national patchwork in 1871, it, too, had a national
library. Today, many Italian large cities have something
called a national library. The one in Naples, in
quantitative terms, is the third largest in Italy (after
Rome and Florence) and is one of the 3705 libraries in
Italy currently hooked into SBN (Servizio bibliotecario nazionale), the
nationwide library catalogue data base.
The National
library is housed in the large east wing of the Royal
Palace in Naples (the photo, above, is of the southern
façade, facing the sea). The entrance is not obvious; that
is, both gates (one of which is the Russian Horses gate) to
the large gardens on the east side of the San Carlo opera
have been closed for years. Entrance is from Piazza
Trieste e Trento (aka San Ferdinando) from the side of the
main west wing of the palace, at which point you wander
back through the grounds until you find the entrance to
the library. As strange as it seems, it works better that
way. You don’t want tourists and other ne'er-do-wells
flooding through the gardens while you are trying to read.
The
origins of the National Library are in the late 18th
century, when the Bourbons
ruled the kingdom of Naples. The book collection in the
royal palace of Capodimonte
was moved to the old university building (the site of
today’s archaeological museum.
The nucleus of that collection was the Farnese book
collection, property of Charles III, the first Bourbon
ruler of Naples. The library was opened by Ferdinand IV
in 1804 as the Royal Library of Naples. During the
subsequent nine years of Bourbon absence
and—importantly—anti-clerical French presence under Murat, the collection was
augmented enormously as monasteries throughout the
kingdom shut down; a thousand years of manuscripts and
books held in monasteries throughout the south became
property of the state. That situation was repeated
throughout Italy after the unification of the nation in
1861 under the anti-clerical Italian government.
("Anti-clerical" doesn’t mean that most Italians were
not good Catholics; in this context, the terms refers to
the age-old power struggle between the nation and the
“temporal power” of the Roman Catholic Church. See this
entry on The Papal States.)
Various private collections
and archaeological finds such as the scrolls of the Herculaneum papyri found their
way into the Naples library such that the old university
building was too small to contain everything. Except for
the dilapidated and never-finished old Royal Poor House, the
only single building in Naples that could house it all
(and it really doesn’t, since some collections are still
dispersed at other locations in the city) was the Royal Palace. Benedetto Croce was instrumental
in getting the city to move the library to that location
in the 1920s. (The library is in the east wing, itself a
Bourbon extension from the late 1700s. The older west
part of the palace contains an art museum and a series
of royal apartments.)
Both WWII and the
1980 earthquake damaged the library. (The damage
included a particularly mindless episode of cultural
vandalism on the part of retreating German forces in 1943
—they decided to burn as many books as they could before
leaving; see this entry on the National
Archives.) The library has come back and since 1990
is part of the above-mentioned SBN. The library hosts
cultural activities, seminars, lectures, and even an
American-literature discussion group. Besides the obvious
cultural “biggies” such as the Herculaneum papyri, there
is a significant collection of material relevant to the
history of southern Italy; as well, there are important
collections at secondary branches in other parts of town.
There is also the usual, large selection of old journals
and newspapers and a workshop/laboratory for the
preservation and restoration of books. The Italian
Ministry for Culture lists the holdings of the Naples
library as 1,480,747 printed volumes; 319,187 pamphlets;
18,415 manuscripts; over 8,000 periodicals; 4,500 incunabula
(i.e. printed material from before 1500); and the 1,800
Herculaneum papyri.
The National Library,
like any institution housed on ad hoc premises (they weren’t meant to
be a library and don’t look like one) can be confusing.
You really can get lost. You don’t wander in and just
browse since the shelves are not open for you to simply
take stuff down and read. It’s not that kind of a
library; you should know what you want and have armed
yourself via the internet with the appropriate reference
numbers or you will go blind trying to decipher old
hand-written index cards in the catalogues. There are
pleasant exceptions. I was looking for something on the
dynastic change when Murat left Naples and the Bourbons
returned in 1815. I thought there might be something in
the Giornale delle
Due Sicilie from that year. I also thought that
it would be impossible to find, or at least impossible
to consult even if I found it. I was directed to the
Lucchesi Palli collection, upstairs; this meant two
right turns, a trip to the wrong floor in the ad hoc
elevator, then back down to the basement, where I
actually wandered into book stacks and got lost (it was
lonely...I could have been murdered by the Phantom of
the Library at any time and people would still be
wondering what had happened to me...), then back up and
out onto a long balcony and back in at the other end,
thus by-passing a blocked door. I finally found the
room. While I was standing there waiting for someone to
help me, I glanced on the shelves and saw the volumes of
the Giornale delle
Due Sicilie. I found the one I wanted, pulled
it out, sat down and started to read. (The results are here in the entry on Murat.)
That’s all there was to it. There can't be more than a
dozen or so complete bound copies of that Bourbon
journal in existence, and I had walked in and pulled one
from the shelf, no questions asked. (So, after I
finished tearing out the pages I wanted... you see, you
have to sneeze every time you rip a page in order to
cover the sound...no, please, that's a joke...don't
write me...)
The
personnel has always been helpful to me, the more so the
stranger the request. They take pride in meeting perverse
requests, even when I asked for information on via Toledo di notte,
a musical drama by Raffaele Viviani
from 1918. I had no catalogue number —nothing. Just, "What
have you got?" The kind lady could have told me to
take a hike over to the music conservatory. Instead, Kind
Lady disappeared and —just when I had convinced myself
that she had gone down to readjust the intruder alert—
reappeared with the original
(!) conductor's score of the musical.
Handwritten. The only copy. "Here," she said. "This?"
Yes, I thought. That'll do.
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