45060013 Piazza XX Settembre

Buildings with flags, Chiesa di Sant'Agostino [left] and Biblioteca Guarnacci, Archivio storico e Biblioteca Comunale (that is, it's the Guarnacci Library, Archives, and Public Library) [right] on Piazza XX Settembre and Via Don Minzoni, Volterra; taken with a Canon EOS 1v.

 

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Chiesa di Sant'Agostino

Built in the thirteenth century, a single aisle, according to the type of plants to shed their mendicant orders, on land donated by the town of Volterra, the hermits of St. Augustine of Montecatini Val di Cecina, where he officiated at the chapel of Santa Lucia; was transformed into three naves with time in the first half of the eighteenth century, when it also receives the current façade.

 

The counter is the tomb of Alexander Del Riccobaldi Light of 1523, among other works, painted on a cross shaped table of the thirteenth century, a fresco of the Madonna and Child by Cenni di Francesco (XIV century) in a Pieta painted pottery attributed to Zechariah Zacchi, St. Thomas and St. Clare of Montefalco Villanuova praying for Baldassare Franceschini (XVII century), a fragment of a fresco with the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. Romuald attributed to Stephen Anthony Vanni (XV century), here transported after leaving the refrettorio the Abbey of Saints Giusto and Clemente.

it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiesa_di_Sant'Agostino_(Volterra) [machine translation]

 

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The Public Library at Volterra opened [presumably 'reopened in its current form'; literally from Italian 'is active from'] March 18, 1985.

 

Located on Via Don Minzoni No 3, in Palazzo Watchers [Palazzo Vigilanti], it comes from meeting the same building of the famous Library Guarnacci (a historical and antiquarian), annex Municipal Historical Archives and the Public Library (a contemporary character).

 

Thus becomes possible to see the community together rationally (though in fact geographically separate) the three major institutions of a historical and informative documentary that boasts Volterra.

 

An original blend, then, and an ideal path to cross the culture of the area ranging from parchment documents of the tenth century to contemporary literature.

 

Library Guarnacci

La Biblioteca Guarnacci, The Guarnacci Library, is a conservative nature and antiques and is one of the most important historical libraries of the Tuscany.

 

It was founded in 1786 with a bequest for the citizens of Volterra of 7,000 volumes to the abbot and scholar Bishop of Volterra Mario Guarnacci.

 

Over time, this library has been constantly increased through purchases, donations and deposits to achieve the remarkable current size of about 50,000 volumes. Among them stand out a huge heritage of 514 manuscripts (including very valuable illuminated manuscripts such as epithalamium GFMarliano composed for the wedding of Bianca Maria Sforza to Giovanni di Mattia Corvino, a famous miniature that reproduces the likeness of the great king of Hungary), 273 incunabula (of particular interest is the only specimen of doctrinal Alexander de Villa Dei, printed in Bologna in 1489 at Bazalerius de Bazaleriis or a wonderful Breviarium Romanum printed on vellum by Jenson at Venice in 1478 and decorated with beautiful illuminations) and over 1,000 sixteenth.

 

Many are the works of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mostly theological argument-religious, literary and historical, as well as treatises on botany, medicine, geography and humanities disciplines. Of particular note section of the abundant local, authentic and fundamental historical memory for the city of Volterra and its territory.

 

Library also belong to the same number of important book collections that keep still intact their original appearance as the Fund Funaioli (about 2,500 volumes, XX-XIX century) and the Fund Pacciani (1450 volumes, XIX century), and large stores such as archival Diplomatic Fund (about 3,000 scrolls aged between 907 and 1756), the Archives Maffei (258 strands, XIV-XIX) Cards Ricciarelli (XVI-XIX), the Archives of the National Guard (1860-1870), the Archives of the Accademia dei Riuniti (XIX century).

 

At Guarnacciana are finally stored in the archive storage and buried with the Library of the valuable collection Aulus Persius Flaccus and interesting Herbarium Amidei.

 

Historical Archives

The Municipal Historical Archives, full of 16,200 pieces of strings and files, document the progress of local history since the days of free common Unification of Italy (XII-XIX centuries).

 

The archive is sorted by the nature of the acts in accordance with the following breakdown:

1) Courts and political and administrative offices;

2) Municipal Finance, Office of abundance and financial magistrates;

3) Customs salt, grain tax, duties;

4) Administration of Customs of the salt;

5) Gabelle;

6) Courts of justice;

7) Monasteries suppressed.

 

It also keep records and registers (estimi, grinding etc.). Relative to the town of Montecatini Val di Cecina, La Sassa, Gello, oak, fuses, Montecastelli, Pomarance and Mazzolla (XVI-XIX centuries).

 

Town Library

The Municipal Library is open to all regardless of age, residence, social status. The library in fact aimed at guaranteeing all citizens the widest possible access to information and culture.

 

While the library Guarnacci and the Municipal Historical Archives are housed respectively in I and the second floor of Palazzo Watchers, in closed to the public, the public library occupies the entire ground floor of the building and is fully accessible.

 

It is divided into a reading room in a 'Newspaper and a Youth Section.

 

What makes it more inviting and friendly consultation and visits to the Library is also the fact that the reading material is placed on open shelves to which users can directly access to view, read or to make free books, newspapers and periodicals, the 'search operation of the volumes in the reading room is also made simpler and more rational system of cataloging adopted (Dewey Decimal Classification), which allows anyone to quickly find work or want to know exactly the availability of the library on a given topic.

 

To finally complete the series of tools needed to navigate between user names, titles and classifications, and, of course, the presence and valuable help of books, there are two computers that allow access to the database of items held at the Library.

 

Currently it is computerized the entire catalog of contemporary section (about 15,000 records) and the Library Guarnacci (about 12,000 records).

 

As we said, the public library consists of three distinct sections, each dedicated to satisfy specific information needs, reading, study or leisure and cultural needs of each targeted age group. In particular, three areas can be divided as follows:

 

The Reading Room is the heart of the Library. Located next to the entrance, has 16 seats. There are computers that allow browsing the catalog computer and paper files by author and subject relating to the Municipal Library and the Library Guarnacci, inventory and all of the Historical City of library materials. The catalog of the Biblioteca Comunale amounted to 12,000 units, is also the general reference room for the whole structure.

 

[EMEROTECA] Newspaper: make available to the public 6 and 7 daily newspapers magazines each month.

 

BOYS SECTION: three rooms, is a highly attended where children find reading materials for school projects and entertainment, plus a number of comics, all in spacious and comfortable rooms.

 

SERVICES OFFERED BY THE LIBRARY

 

INFORMATION: in the Library you can have news about activities and cultural initiatives promoted by the Library and bibliographic information.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHIC SERVICE users and help in a search of files and catalogs.

 

Free loan of books for a period of one month, for up to three works or 4 volumes. At the service allowed all citizens regardless of age, residing in the town of Volterra. The loan can be renewed. It is possible to reserve works were on loan requests. Upon return of the item is reserved to the user that it has at its disposal.

 

PHOTOCOPYING: photocopying service is available at a cost of € 0.10 per A4 and A3 for € 0.20 each.

 

ALL SERVICES ARE FREE FROM LIBRARY except photocopying.

 

NETWORK BIBLIOLANDIA

The Library of Volterra BIBLIOLANDIA adheres to the library network, a network of libraries founded in 1999 that now includes 37 libraries, including 21 municipal, 13 private schools and 3, all located between Era, Lower Valdarno Valdicecina.

 

BIBLIOLANDIA is a large library of over 300,000 volumes. Of these, about 255,000 are currently cataloged in electronic form and can be searched in the catalog only placed on the web at Internet bibliolandia.it where one form allows you to search for "camps" and introduces the user to 'inclusion of indications of author, title words, publisher.

 

Through interlibrary loan can be delivered at each library, at the request of any user, one or more books in the catalog Bibliolandia Network.

 

A weekly service allows the circulation of books and documents. Along with the catalog, the weekly delivery of books allows Bibliolandia to function as one big library with access points distributed throughout the territory.

 

All citizens can go to your reference library and consult the catalog of Bibliolandia search for the desired book.

 

If the volume is not available locally you can book and get through the weekly delivery service from one of the libraries of the Network.

 

By consulting the catalog also highlights the specific library or libraries that own the books and someone who has urgent need of a text will eventually appear in person at the library that owns it and get a loan.

 

BOOKS ON THE WEB

The Library adheres to the service of Volterra 'Books on the Net' implemented by the Region of Tuscany.

 

Consult the regional MetaOPAC at web.rete.toscana.it/metaopac/index.jsp or asking for help in research at the library, you can see a virtual catalog of 4.2 million titles, found the book interesting You can ask to borrow through the regional service "Books on the Net." A courier will deliver books to the Library applicant at no cost to you.

comune.volterra.pi.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/81 [modified machine translation]

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