San Daniele Friuli, the mayor wants to divide the Guarneriana Library. But only 1 in 3 citizens care about it

The town of San Daniele del Friuli, nearly eight thousand inhabitants in the province of Udine, is home to one of the oldest public libraries in Italy: the Biblioteca Guarneriana, founded in 1466 by the Friulian humanist Guarnerio d’Artegna (Pordenone, c. 1410 - San Daniele del Friuli, 1466), who in his will, drawn up on October 7, 1466, expressed his intention to donate all his books to the community of San Daniele. The antique collection includes 600 manuscript codices, 84 incunabula and more than 700 cinquecentine, as well as 12,000 antique books with which the Guarneriana has been enriched over the centuries. An enrichment that also passes through the Modern Section, which offers books that can be accessed directly, as well as specialized publications (available upon request) for the study of the holdings of the Ancient Section.

Around the Guarneriana there has been a heated controversy in recent days about the proposal (launched about a year ago) of the mayor of San Daniele del Friuli, Pietro Valent (Northern League), who put forward the idea of splitting the Ancient Section from the Modern Section. The dismemberment of the Library envisages that the Modern Section (which is an integral part of the Guarneriana’s collections) would be moved out of the historic center and that the Ancient Fund would be managed by a third entity (probably a foundation) that would also enhance it through a permanent exhibition of ancient manuscripts, which would be set up in the rooms now occupied by the Modern Section. “The two sections render completely different services,” the mayor said last Nov. 5 while speaking on Friuli-Venezia Giulia’s regional TG3. “The Ancient Section does not lend codes, it makes them available to scholars. The Modern does the services of any other modern library, the difference being that ours has a large number of books, so 50 percent of our users come from outside San Daniele. They say to move it to the suburbs: here in San Daniele they mean 500 meters away as the crow flies. Why are we moving it? Because we have an interest in using the building that is in front of the Ancient Section of the Guarnerian Library, which currently houses the Modern Section, to enhance the jewel that we have, the Ancient Guarnerian. Enhance it how? There is a lot of demand for knowledge of the heritage that we Sandanielese preserve. So we want to use new spaces to offer guided tours in an environment that can tell the story of the Guarneriana, that in rotation can have an exhibition of some cinquecentina or a codex, as so many important libraries in Italy and Europe do, make spaces available to enhance Sandanielese culture in general.”

Expressing opposition to the mayor’s proposal are several citizens represented by the Civic Guarnerian Committee, formed with the aim of preventing the separation of the ancient and modern collections. Dino Barattin, former director of the library, said that “the Modern Section and the Ancient Section complement each other, one enhances the other. The idea of moving the Library-Modern Section to a suburban street I think is a bad idea in the sense that it would deprive the historic center of its cultural engine. You can’t divide libraries. And then we asked ourselves many things: who will manage the Old Library? Who will be entrusted with that precious heritage that the community has preserved so many years?” The Committee also wrote a letter to the mayor, expressing concern for the Guarneriana: “what your project seems to want to accomplish,” the text reads, “is the ’museification’ of the Ancient Section of the Guarneriana, with codices displayed on the bulletin board: a library made visible rather than consultable, with a ’valorization’ that does not pass through study and scientific research, but through commercialization, in an economicist conception of the library, with an idea of culture as business, where everything that does not make cash is of no use, where the passage of the tourist is the only goal to be achieved. The library and archival heritage cannot be ’museified’ because its main function, that is, fruition, understood as study, research and knowledge, would be lost. A ’valorization’, moreover, that neglects to take into account the essential elements for the preservation of a unique heritage. The Guarneriana’s book collection contains a wide range of organic materials, such as animal skins, paper, fabric, all substances that by their nature undergo continuous and inevitable aging processes. All wavelengths of light (visible, infrared, and ultraviolet) accelerate the chemical decomposition of organic materials: light, whether natural or artificial, causes discoloration, yellowing, or browning of papers and parchments; it causes discoloration of media and colors, color change, and alteration of the legibility and appearance of documents. And the damage caused by light is irreversible.”

Concerns also relate to the management of the Antica and the location of the Moderna: “Handing over the enhancement of the Guarneriana’s patrimony to a third party entity, participated by private individuals, as you seem to want to do, Mayor Valent, means de facto (if not de jure) ceding ownership of all choices concerning that patrimony. On the board of directors of a foundation, the voice of the citizens of San Daniele will be only one among many: for decisions that the community does not agree with, the citizens will no longer have any means to make their voices strongly heard, not even the weapon of the referendum anymore. Lastly, the removal of a portion of the Guarneriana from the heart of the city (of that portion of the library, the Modern Section, which offers services to all of your fellow citizens and which together offers the indispensable support for knowledge and scientific research on the heritage of the Old, to replace it with services for the use of tourists), will surely have a lasting impact on the community that, pro tempore, you now administer.”

Citizens, in order to avert the risk, collected the necessary signatures in the summer for an advisory referendum asking to keep the two sections together, set for Sunday, Nov. 24 (The two questions read: “Do you want both Sections of the Guarneriana Library (Ancient Section and Modern Section) to remain under direct and unified management to the Municipality of San Daniele del Friuli on behalf of the citizens?” and “Do you want the Modern Section of the Guarneriana Library to remain in its current location in the historic center on Via Roma at number 10?”). The two sides (the mayor for no, the Committee for yes) battled it out, with even unedifying episodes (the tearing down of election posters) but the 50%+1 quorum was not reached: only 30.21% of eligible voters (thus only 1 in 3 citizens: 2,343 in total) went to vote. However, the yes vote won an overwhelming majority, with over 95% for the first question and 91% for the second. The separation project therefore will probably go ahead.

“Last night,” Mayor Valent commented yesterday, “the Referendum question closed. The quorum was not reached, stopping at 30.21%. [...]. For weeks, but I would like to say from the very beginning after the referendum was called, precisely for an objective analysis of the results I had prepared a grid with the different voting thresholds for as unemotional an evaluation as possible, indicating to the majority councilors what the politically relevant numbers would be. Numbers not reached by the result of this consultation. [...] if the Committee will be able to free itself from the opposition’s instrumentalization and will be able to confront us by leaving aside preconceptions and abandoning those war horses that have nothing to do with our vision (privatization in primis) it will be possible to sit at a table and improve what we are calmly doing.”

For Roberta Osso of the Civic Guarnerian Committee it is equally a positive result: “it is still a success for a library all the more so considering that the mayor in the 2018 local elections had been elected with 1,591 votes. Our request was simply to be able to express the opinion of the citizens.”

Pictured: the Guarneriana Library in San Daniele del Friuli.

San Daniele Friuli, the mayor wants to divide the Guarneriana Library. But only 1 in 3 citizens care about it

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