Biblioteca Riccardiana

Florence, Italy

Contacts

Palazzo Medici Riccardi
Via Ginori, 10 - 50123
Firenze, Italy

Phone: +39 055 212586/293385
Fax: +39 055 211379
E-mail: b-ricc@cultura.gov.it

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Description

"The collection was begun in the sixteenth century by Riccardo Romolo Riccardi. In the last decades of the seventeenth, it was significantly enlarged by Francesco Riccardi, partially as a result of the dowry of his wife, Cassandra Capponi. Her father Vincenzio, an erudite and famous man of letters and science closely connected with the circle of Galileo, had left his daughter part of his extensive library of scientific and philosophical texts. In the eighteenth century the family's fortune starts its decline. Their financial trouble also implicated the library, which was put up for auction. The collection ran the risk of leaving Florence, but it was purchased by the City Council in 1813, and handed over to the State two years later. From that moment the Riccardiana became public, although the Riccardi had actually already opened it for academic use. In fact, scholars could benefit from this precious bibliographic heritage until 1737, as illustrated by a register of loans still conserved in the library. The exceptionally precious manuscript heritage boasts autograph works by Petrarch, Boccaccio, Savonarola and the greatest Humanists (Alberti, Ficino, Poliziano and Pico della Mirandola) as well as splendid illuminated codices, magnificent bindings and major nuclei from other aristocratic and humanist libraries, the correspondence of famous men, and numerous rare works related to the theatre, the pharmacopoeia, travel, history and literature." - web site