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The Marciana National Library (or the library of San Marco) is one of
the largest Italian libraries and the most important in Venice.
Also known as the Marciana Library, San Marco Library, Marciana Library,
Sansoviniana Library, Old Library or San Marco Library, it is located on
the lower part of Piazza San Marco, between the bell tower of San Marco
and the Mint.
The first proposal to establish a "public library" in Venice was made
in 1362 by Francesco Petrarca, who however failed to carry out the
project. Upon his death, he left his personal library presumably to the
Da Carraras, lords of Padua.
The first nucleus of the library is
made up of the donation that Cardinal Bessarion made on 31 May 1468 to
the Republic of Venice "ad communem hominum utilitatem" (for the common
good of men): 746 codes, of which 482 in Greek and 246 in Latin, to
which another 250 manuscripts were subsequently added after the death of
the donor.
The library increased its inventory thanks to numerous
donations and bequests, as well as thanks to the incorporation of other
libraries of the city and the Republic. Many of the donated works came
from Byzantium, conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Also thanks to
this collection, Venice was the most important center for the study of
Greek classics. It attracted the greatest humanist scholars, many of
whom gathered around the publisher Aldo Manuzio in the Aldina Academy.
In 1603 a law came into force which required every Venetian printer
to deposit a copy of every book printed at the Marciana, which thus
became the institutional library of the Serenissima Republic. In 1624
the library catalog was printed.
After the fall of Venice, the
collections of religious institutions suppressed by Napoleon were
partially transferred to the Marciana Library.
In 1811 the
library was transferred to the Palazzo Ducale. Only in 1924 did it
return to its historic site. Today, in addition to the Palazzo della
Libreria, it also occupies Jacopo Sansovino's Mint Factory.
Librarians of San Marco
Marcantonio Sabellico (1436-1506) ?
Pietro
Bembo (1470-1547) ? from 1530
Iacopo Morelli (1745-1819), originally
from Barbengo, was the 'keeper' of the library for forty years.
Since 1797:
Iacopo Morelli (June 1797 – 1819)
Pietro Bettio
(1819 – 1846)
Giuseppe Valentinelli (1846 – 1874)
Giovanni Veludo
(1874 – 1884)
Carlo Castellani (1884 – 1897)
Solomon Morpurgo
(1898 – 1905)
Giuliano Bonazzi (1905)
Carlo Frati (December 1905 –
July 1913)
Giulio Coggiola (1913 – September 1919)
Ester
Pastorello (regent) (September 1919 – November 1920)
Luigi Ferrari
(December 1920 – July 1948)
Pietro Zorzanello (1948 – 1951)
Tullia
Gasparrini Leporace (1951 – 1969)
Giorgio Emanuele Ferrari (1969 –
1973)
Eugenia Govi (1973 – 1976)
Gian Albino Ravalli Modoni (1976
– 1989)
Marino Zorzi (1989 – November 30, 2007)
Roberto Di Carlo
(regent) (December 2007 – April 2008)
Maria Letizia Sebastiani (May
2008 – February 2012)
Maurizio Messina (February 2012 – 31 July 2018)
Stefano Campagnolo (September 4, 2018 – present)
Jacopo Sansovino is called to build an important building which has
the heavy task of marking a strong sign in the square, also designed by
him but also that of not diminishing its meaning and value: it must also
dialogue with the pre-existing structures.
The project is
remarkable, the structure important. The decoration forms the basis of
the library, built on two floors. The architectural order, which
significantly defines the decoration of the building, is superimposed,
that is to say that we find on the ground floor a rich three-dimensional
Tuscan leaning against the pillars (in the Roman style) with evident
triglyphs and metopes and on the upper floor the Ionic . An example of
great innovation are the very compact serliane which characterize the
building on the first floor.
The decorative enrichment of the
library is embellished with sculptural works (do not forget that
Sansovino himself was a sculptor and in this case puts his skills to
good use). Festoons of fruit, a large cornice with important statues in
correspondence with the columns characterize the evident Renaissance
crowning. For the first time we notice the emptying of the parapets
right on the crown, an absolute novelty for the library.
In
addition to innovation, everything is designed with reference to Roman
models, such as the festoons that were used in Roman funerary works.
Palladio defines the library as "the richest and most ornate
building ever built by the ancients up to now".
The facade is on
two levels:
the arches on the ground floor are of the Tuscan order.
On them rests a Doric entablature alternating triglyphs and metopes;
on the second level there is an Ionic loggia, dominated in turn by a
rich frieze in which cherubs and festoons of flowers and fruit follow
one another. In the soffits, a rich sculptural decoration. On the top, a
balustrade surmounted by statues of classical deities, works by
Alessandro Vittoria, Tommaso Minio, Tommaso and Girolamo Lombardo,
Danese Cattaneo and Bartolomeo Ammannati (the latter are attributed the
six reclining rivers closest to Sansovino's Loggetta and the god
Phanes).
In the facade, light and chiaroscuro, the voids prevail
over the solids. It is a multipurpose organism, whose prospectus on the
square is resolved with a double order of arches with a Roman character,
inspired by the Teatro di Marcello and the Sangallesque projects for the
courtyard of Palazzo Farnese, but the alterations of the proportions
denounce a desire for interpretation that goes beyond academic citation.
The first order, portico, takes up the double Roman system of columns
supporting the architrave and pillars supporting the arches, and the
second (here the Mannerist derogation prevails) which has discontinuous
balustrades, columns supporting a very rich frieze and serliane so
contracted nullify their value as three-mullioned windows.
Bessarion had made the placing of the books in a worthy location as a
condition. But the Serenissima took a long time to fulfill this
condition. The library was first located in a building on the Riva degli
Schiavoni, then in San Marco and finally in the Doge's Palace.
Only in 1537 was the construction of the Palazzo della Libreria started,
located in Piazza San Marco and designed by Jacopo Sansovino.
In
1545 the ceiling of the reading room collapsed and Sansovino found
himself in prison. Thanks to the recommendations of influential friends,
however, he was soon released and was able to resume the work, but he
had to repay the damage with his own money. The library moved to the old
library in 1553. The building, however, was only completed in 1588 by
Vincenzo Scamozzi, who had taken over the direction of the work after
Sansovino's death in 1570.
Among others, Titian, Paolo Veronese,
Alessandro Vittoria, Battista Franco, Giuseppe Porta, Bartolomeo
Ammannati, Giovanni Demio and Tintoretto contributed to its decoration.
The Marciana National Library specializes in classical philology and
the history of Venice. His library holdings include:
Approximately
1,000,000 printed volumes
2,887 incunabula
13,117 manuscripts
24,060 sixteenth century
The most important specimens from the
end of the Marciana are the two most illustrious codices of the Iliad,
Homerus Venetus A (10th century) and Homerus Venetus B (11th century).
Also worthy of mention are Fra Paolino's Chronologia magna, a
manuscript of Pliny's Naturalis historia, copied for Giovanni Pico della
Mirandola in 1481, a copy of the first book printed in Venice, Cicero's
Epistulae ad familiaris of 1481 and four consilia manuscripts from
Bartolomeo Capodivacca in the fourteenth century. There are also the
Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris. Also very important is the "Grimani
Breviary", an important Flemish Miniato code donated by Cardinal Grimani
in the early sixteenth century.
The library also houses 56
volumes of diaries by Marin Sanudo, one of the most important sources of
Venetian history between 1496 and 1533. A particular treasure of the
library is a complete collection of the Aldines.
The library also
has a remarkable collection of maps and atlases, both historical and
current. The mappa mundi by Fra Mauro (1459) and the map of the city of
Venice by Jacopo de' Barbari (1500) stand out. Since 1996, the Library's
assets have been the subject of a series of bibliographic recovery,
reproduction, digitization and cataloging interventions. Some of these
interventions were also carried out thanks to funds from the Lotto game,
on the basis of the provisions of law 662/96.