To my mind the most fascinating of these clerics was the 16th-century priest (and saint) Filippo Neri, the charismatic founder of the Oratorians and their library, the Biblioteca Vallicelliana. Originally associated with different religious orders (the Augustinians, the Dominicans and the Oratorians), these three libraries, now run by the state, retain some of the unique spirit of the clerics who established them. The Angelica, the Casanatense and the Vallicelliana are in the part of Rome I know and love best – the historic centre anchored by Piazza Navona. Rome has no shortage of important, and stunning, libraries, and I managed to squeeze in three during my culture binge there. Yes, the library has books, too – one million of them – but to my eyes the Marciana itself is as precious as its holdings. I gazed at the Titians, Veroneses and Tintorettos that adorn the walls and ceiling. Today, you can visit using the same admission ticket that gives you access to the Doge’s Palace and the nearby Correr Museum. Originally, the Marciana’s salone was filled with walnut desks to which codices (ancient bound manuscripts) were chained, but in 1904 the chamber was converted to an exhibition and lecture space. “Situating the library in the most important place in Venice reflects the prestige of the book in the culture of the city.” Knit seamlessly into the architectural fabric surrounding San Marco, the Marciana was hailed by Italian architect, Palladio, as the richest and most ornate building “since Antiquity” when it opened in 1570. “The Marciana was built here as part of the 16th-century project to create a triumphal entry to the city from the lagoon,” he said, joining me on the balcony off the salone, Sansovino’s palatial reading room. With a pirate’s flashing grin, Campana left his post to take me on a tour of the library’s monumental public rooms. Not once were we shushed or told not to touch.Ĭarlo Campana, the librarian on duty in the Marciana manuscript room when we arrived, was typical in his affable erudition. Why go to the library in Italy when all around you there is fantastic art, exalted architecture and deep history? Because, as I discovered in the course of a rushed but illuminating week dashing from Venice to Rome, Florence and Milan, the country’s historic libraries contain all of those without the crowds.Īccompanied by my friend Jack Levison (a Bible scholar who was in Italy to study ancient manuscripts), I hit six libraries in a literary Giro d’Italia. At my back, an immense, hushed, empty reading room designed by Jacopo Sansovino and decorated by Titian and Veronese. Across the Piazzetta rose the Doge’s Palace. It was 10 in the morning and I was standing, alone and enthralled, on the second floor balcony of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

In the madness of late spring at San Marco Square in Venice, amid the hordes pouring in from land and sea, I found the still point of the turning world.

The beauty of Italy can be discovered within the halls of its reading rooms The Hidden treasures in Italian librariesġ December 2017 Leave the packed streets of the city behind.

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