A new museum tour dedicated to books. The Academy of Carrara exhibits the Antique Fund

Precious and rare books from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, unique specimens, cinquecentine, collections of prints: the conspicuous book material of the Antiquarian Fund of theAcademy of Fine Arts of Carrara is on display in a new museum itinerary entirely dedicated to books. The Carrara institute, which this year celebrates its anniversary number 250 (it was in fact founded in 1769 by deed of Maria Teresa Cybo: the birthday will also be celebrated with a series of meetings), expands its itinerary with two rearranged rooms totally dedicated to books: adjacent to the Library, they will also host themed exhibitions.

There are more than 25,000 volumes that make up the Academy’s book heritage, including both ancient and modern books: as part of the rearrangement of the two rooms, computerized cataloging operations also continued, by theSURUS Association of Massa, under the supervision of library staff (the results will be available both on the online catalog of the library system of the Province of Massa and Carrara and on the national catalog edited by the Central Institute for the Single Catalogue). Cataloging will then be an opportunity to enhance the Academy’s entire collections through a new inventory of all specimens, so that their actual holdings will finally be known.

The rearrangement and reorganization of the Antiquarian Fund has also provided those in charge of the operations(Laura Benedetti, librarian in charge of the Academy of Fine Arts, Marina Carboni, president of the SURUS Association, and Federica Frongia, librarian of the SURUS Association) with an opportunity to rediscover the treasures of the Academy’s library: among them, some rarities, which are unparalleled. In fact, there are 266 books in the Library that are rare on the national territory (i.e., owned by less than five libraries in Italy) and 40 titles that do not appear in any other Italian library, and sometimes are rarities even in international catalogs. Rare books include an edition of the Chess Game by Rodrigo López de Segura (Zafra, 1530 - Madrid, 1580), which belonged to Valerio Pellegrini, a dignitary of Francesco I d’Este, duke of Modena; a collection of the letters of Paolo Manuzio (father of the celebrated publisher Aldo) sent to Prince Alberico Cybo Malaspina; the letters of Francesco Berrettari; and again a very rare edition of Phaedrus’s Fables translated by Count Jacopo Giuseppe Luciani (unobtainable in Italy), the so-called "Paul-Jones, an equally rare eighteenth-century satire on America published in France (few copies even in international catalogs), an eighteenth-century mythological dictionary, a rare edition of Maggio romanesco with the last print by Roman engraver Bartolomeo Pinelli, an illustrated edition of theAeneid published in 1811, an extraordinary nineteenth-century book on the horse with retractable figures, forerunner of today’s pop-up books.

In parallel with cataloging, the Academy also conducts enhancement operations: in this sense, one of the two halls, the one that houses the Altar of Illustrious Men (a kind of secular altar, made in 1873, that houses the busts of Carrara’s distinguished people in history), has been doubled and connected to the adjoining halls (with the result that the Academy’s tour is expanded and enriched). The reorganization also aims to reconstruct, by physically reuniting the specimens that are part of it, some of the bequests that constituted the founding nucleus of the Library: among these stands out the Oreste Raggi Fund, named after the lawyer from Carrara who in 1869 donated more than 3,000 volumes and goods including pamphlets, “drawings, engravings and other objects of fine arts.” thus are fulfilled, exactly 150 years later, the wishes of the donor who requested that his donation remain distinct from the rest of the estate.

“This new path within the collections,” says Academy director Luciano Massari, “represents not only an expansion of the library spaces at the service of users, but is a further step in the museum arrangement of the collections, which are extremely rich in terms of quality, quantity and variety of materials: we have a unique historical-artistic heritage, which includes sculptures from every era, from ancient statuary to the present day, an interesting nucleus of paintings, teaching tools and cartographic and scientific materials. The Academy is a museum where people live and work on a daily basis, often surrounded by original furnishings. This is a real privilege for students who come to train here and have a way to immerse themselves in the past to understand what directions to take for the future.”

“The reorganization,” says Laura Benedetti, “has allowed us to re-establish a consonant situation for the Fondo Antico. The support of the Academy’s staff and its students was also fundamental in achieving this result. It was a job that lasted several months, which allowed us to restore the Antique Fund of the Academy Library to its dignity: the Fund, in fact, also represents the historical memory of the city of Carrara, and let us not forget that this Library, established in 1890 at the behest of the then director of the Academy, Ferdinando Pelliccia, together with the secretary in charge Giuseppe Baratta, was meant to be a library of the city, collecting books not only dedicated to the arts, but also to many other subjects. The Academy Library was in fact the first public library in Carrara, and one of the first open to the public in Italy. The Academy Library is therefore not just a specialized library, but an important cultural center for the whole city.”

“We are currently working on about 12,000 volumes,” Marina Carboni explains. “And we are proceeding with a computerized cataloging, reinventing all the volumes also to know exactly how many books are in the Library. But we are also working on the physical location of the volumes: in particular, we are reconstructing the Funds (such as the Oreste Raggi Fund) in a philological way.”

“The Academy,” stresses the president, Antonio Passa, “fully shares what has been done so far: the enhancement of the artistic heritage is fundamental to communicate nationally and internationally what the Academy of Carrara since its foundation has capitalized so far. Praiseworthy is the interest of Director Professor Luciano Massari, who has been fighting for years for our heritage to be enhanced and made available to both the interior and the community of Carrara. I also congratulate all the professors and those others who have worked over the years to recompose such a valuable mosaic.”

Pictured: part of the new Carrara Academy pathway dedicated to books

A new museum tour dedicated to books. The Academy of Carrara exhibits the Antique Fund

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