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The Biblioteca Augusta is a municipal public library in Perugia, Italy, located in the Palazzo Conestabile della Staffa [it] in the Porta Sole [it] area of the city. It was founded in 1582 by the humanist Prospero Podiani [it] ^[1], who donated his private library, including over 10.000 books, to the Municipality of Perugia. It opened to the public in 1623, and for this reason can be considered one of the oldest public libraries of Italy. The former church of Sant'Angelo della Pace in Porta Sole, named after the literary critic Walter Binni since 2009]], is currently part of the library. It is the most important library among the 6 that are part of the municipal library system of the city of Perugia, and for the richness of its collections it is the most important library of Umbria. Its collections of ancient books make it an eminent national and international research site.

It owns approximately 400.000 documents, 3.408 manuscripts, 1.330 incunabula and 3.771 periodicals. Moreover, there is also a large number of ancient books (circa 16.500) from the 1500s, and 55.000 publications from the period 1600-1830.

The bibliographical heritage can be consulted on SBN (Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale) on-line catalogues. The library collaborates with EDIT 16 for the national census of the Italian publications from the XVI century, and the manuscripts are catalogued thanks to Manus on-line. Historical newspapers, handwritten and printed, can be consulted in the digital library. As a library of legal registration, Biblioteca Augusta receives copies of all the publications of the province of Perugia.

The Biblioteca Augusta originated by the donation which the humanist Prospero Podiani made of his own private library, including over 10.000 books, to the Municipality of Perugia. The donation act is dated December 22, 1582,and this marks officially the birth of the library which can be considered one of the oldest public libraries in Italy. Its name “Augusta” derives from the classical antiquity of the city of Perugia– Augusta Perusia – and from the name of the academy, Accademia Augusta, which the library had contacts with during the XVIII century.

Differently from most Italian libraries, the origins of the Biblioteca Augusta are very peculiar: it was founded by a private, Prospero Podiani, but the collection of books was intended for public use, and the will to provide the city of Perugia with a public library was strongly supported by the city council. The first location of the library was a building next to Palazzo dei Priori purchased by the Boncampi family and the first librarian was Prospero Podiani himself. After him Fulvio Mariottelli was designated as the new librarian, with the task of reordering and compiling the inventory of the library collection. He was the author of Ragguaglio intorno alla libraria Podiani, published in Perugia in 1618, which can be considered the first theoretical treatise on public library.

In 1623 Biblioteca Augusta was moved to a new location: Palazzo Meniconi, in Piazza del Sopramuro, in front of the University. From 1623 and for the following two and a half centuries the library carried out its regular service to the public, as recorded by an epigraph preserved in the current location of Biblioteca Augusta at Palazzo Conestabile della Staffa. During the XVIII century the library became the main institute for preservation and culture of the city. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1774, Pope Clemens XIV gave to the Municipality the library which belonged to the Jesuits' College of Perugia. Thus, a huge quantity of books was acquired by the Biblioteca Augusta, and in an attempt to contain all of them many duplicates were sold. The proceeds were used to buy new books and for other necessities of the library. Since 1857, with Adamo Rossi, Augusta had a real librarian for culture, competence and passion for his work. Under his management, in 1867, the manuscripts by Annibale Mariotti were acquired, fundamental for documentary investigations and studies on local history even today.

Since the second half of the XIX century, especially after the Unification of Italy, the problem to find a new location for the Biblioteca Augusta aroused from the copious number of books acquired after the suppression of the religious corporations. These enriched the bibliographical heritage of the library with valuable books predominantly with a religious subject. Due to lack of space, books were grouped provisionally in some rooms of the Convento di Santa Maria Nuova. Between 1881 and 1893 the Biblioteca Augusta was moved to Palazzo dei Priori, and the Salone Podiani, which nowadays is part of the Galleria Nazionale dell'Umbria, was used as a reading room with majestic shelves designed for storing thousands of books. From 1857 onwards the library was equipped with more advanced library tools such as file cabinets and for the first time after two and a half centuries external book loans were allowed. In 1894, during the management of the librarian Vincenzo Ansidei, Augusta acquired the important collection of books previously owned by Ariodante Fabretti. For almost eighty years the library has been located at Palazzo dei Priori, but some problems with the static of the building in 1950 forced to move the library funds stored in the west wing to an external depository obtained from the monumental Chiesa di San Bevignate.

Since 1969 library funds were gathered in the new and current location at Palazzo Conestabile della Staffa. Built in the years 1628-1629, the building has had many owners throughout its history: during the Risorgimento Maria Bonaparte Valentini sojourned there and it became an important scientific and literary salon. Then it was purchased by the Municipality of Perugia and after restoration it was adapted to be used as a library by the architects Daniele Calabi and Mario Dalla Costa. Since 1939 Augusta has a role as a legal deposit library for the books published in the province of Perugia.

Donations by illustrious proponents of the liberal and Risorgimento's ideals have added to the funds derived from the suppression of the religious corporations. For this reason, many works of a laic and positivist nature have enriched the heritage of the library. Among the Modern funds can be mentioned: Fondo militare, Fondo Silvestri, Fondo Pizzoni, Fondo Binni, Fondo Lipinsky, collections of bio-bibliography, librarianship and history of the press, prints and photographs, current periodicals, magazines and historical newspapers.

The manuscript owned by the library are organized in a single fund. The collection is not homogeneous and originated by Prospero Podiani's donation, who collected a certain number of codices from different periods and origins following his own interests. In the XVII and XVIII centuries papers and books of local scholars such as Cesare Crispolti, Ottavio Lancillotti, Marco Antonio Bonciari and Cesare Alessi added to this first group. The greatest increases arrived with the libraries of the suppressed Religious Corporations located in Perugia. Together with the library of the Benedictine monastery of San Pietro the Biblioteca Augusta obtained the manuscripts - in Latin and Greek - which Francesco Matarazzo (or Maturanzio) bequeathed to the monastery. With the library of the convent of San Domenico, Augusta obtained the manuscripts by Leonardo Mansueti, who was Master General of the Dominican Order since 1474 and who made up a private library with more than 500 books. Moreover, from San Domenico comes a collection of 21 chorals richly illuminated which includes two liturgical series respectively from the end of the XIII century and from the middle of the XIV. These acquisitions were added to the manuscript fund without any distinction, so their origin can be recognized only by the possession notes or by their old collocations, if present. To these manuscripts were added other manuscript funds previously owned by intellectuals of Perugia. In 1867 the Municipality of Perugia purchased the library made of handwritten books by Annibale Mariotti, doctor, historian and person of letters of Perugia who died in 1801. His library was also full of his own notes, works and original documents concerning the history of the city. Other important documents acquired by the Biblioteca Augusta were the papers by Mariano Guardabassi, which include a series of travel diaries where can be found his own notes and sketches of the historical, artistic and archeological sites of Umbria he visited. Moreover, the library acquired the papers of the Commissione artistica per l'Umbria, curated by Mariano Guardabassi himself in the role of supervisor of the inspection at the suppressed religious congregations in 1866. The papers describe in detail all the items requisitioned from the churches of Perugia and of the whole Umbria. At the end of the XIX century Augusta acquired the library previously owned by the historian Ariodante Fabretti, full of autograph manuscripts written by himself and by his father Giuseppe Fabretti, who was an historian too and also an archaeologist. An abundant correspondence between the two is also preserved at the library. Another important collection is the one of the documents concerning the Arti cittadine (City arts) obtained through donations and purchases; in fact, this is an important testimony of the past economic life of the city from the XIII century to the XIX. Augusta preserves the illuminated manuscripts containing statutes and lists.

The Biblioteca Augusta owns a conspicuous number of printed ancient books, circa 70.000 units, as a consequence of the continuous increasing with donations, purchases, domanial acquisitions of the original fund donated by Prospero Podiani.

The Incunabula Fund includes approximately 1.330 units. The oldest core - made of about sixty units and a certain number of manuscripts and ancient printed books from the 1500s - used to be part of the private library which Prospero Podiani donated to the Municipality of Perugia at the end of the XVI century. Then, besides the incunabula of uncertain or unknown origin, the more conspicuous number of books was acquired by Augusta after the suppression of the Religious Corporations. Among the most famous typographers who worked in Perugia can be mentioned Johannes Vydenast and Stephanus Arndes, both coming from Germany. Their typographies used to print not only books with a religious and humanistic content, but also books of juridical subject and works by illustrious professors of law of the ancient and prestigious University of Perugia, such as Bartolus de Saxoferrato and Baldus de Ubaldis. It is worth mentioning the presence of incunabula produced by the important Miniature Schools of Umbria and of the Rome and Venice area. Among the other incunabula, Biblioteca Augusta preserves the important and mysterious work titled Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published by Aldus Manutius in 1499 and containing more than one hundred xylographs, and the first edition (1494) of the Summa de arithmetica by the Franciscan mathematician Luca Pacioli, which was the first treatise on arithmetic and algebra to be printed.

The collection of ancient printed books owned by the Biblioteca Augusta includes the Fondo Antico (Ancient Fund), some funds derived by private libraries and a collection of Aldine Publications. Some other books before 1830, for a total of about 6.500 units, are preserved together with modern books. The fund of Aldine Publications includes works printed in Venice by the Manutius family (Aldus the Elder, with or without his father in law Andrea Torresano, Paulus, Aldus the Younger) and by the Accademia Aldina in the XVI century; works printed by the year 1500 by Aldus the Elder are part of the Fondo Incunaboli (Incunabula Fund). The number of books stored is 650: among these ones can be found works of humanistic interest, mostly classical works, grammars and latin and greek lexica. Moreover, it is present a rare edition of the Terze Rime by Dante (1501) in lingua volgare.

Biblioteca Augusta owns over 3.800 Italian and foreign newspapers, 536 of which currently operating. Periodicals belong to the historical-cultural area: magazines about literature, art, sociology, history of thought, politics, economy, religion, bibliology and institutional affairs. More attention is given to the local press. Historical periodicals, from the end of the XVIII century to the middle of XX, can be consulted on the digital library of Biblioteca Augusta

The collection of prints is made of almost 30.000 units produced between the XVI and the XX century. The documents are sorted by subject – in particular the sections of Perugia, Umbria, Città umbre (Umbria cities) - which together with the atlas heritage and the chorographic collections are very helpful in the historical and iconographical local searches. Other sections are of religious and architecture subject, portraits and representations of illustrious people. The great chart of Italy (1676) in 12 sheets by the engraver Matthaeus Greuter, can be considered the most valuable sample of the graphic fund. The chart represents with some variants the previous 1647 edition of which is known only a single copy acquired by a Milanese cultural institute.

The Biblioteca Augusta stores archives and document collections that are increased periodically by new donations or testamentary bequests.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Biblioteca Augusta.

• Edward Edwards (1869), "Brief Notices of Collectors: Prosper Podiani", Free Town Libraries: Their Formation, Management, and History in Britain, France, Germany & America, New York: J. Wiley, OCLC 1385548

• Ennio Sandal (1990). "Endowed Municipal Public Libraries". Libraries & Culture. 25 (3: Libraries and Librarianship in Italy). USA: 358–371. JSTOR 25542275.

• Angela Nuovo (2010). "Private Libraries in Sixteenth-century Italy". In Bettina Wagner [de]; Marcia Reed (eds.). Early Printed Books as Material Objects. IFLA Publications. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-025324-5. {{cite book}}: Check |editor1= value (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: editors list (link)

• Cristina Dondi; Maria Alessandra Panzanelli Fratoni (2016). "Researching the Origin of Perugia's Public Library (1582/1623) before and after Material Evidence in Incunabula". Quaerendo. 46 (2). Netherlands.

• Maria Pecugi Fop (1974). "Gli incunaboli del Fondo Podiani nella Biblioteca Augusta". Bollettino della Deputazione di Storia Patria per l'Umbria (in Italian). 71.

• Giovanni Cecchini (1978). La Biblioteca Augusta del Comune di Perugia (in Italian). Rome: [[Edizioni di

Storia e Letteratura]] [[[:it:Edizioni di

Storia e Letteratura|it]]]. {{cite book}}: line feed character in |publisher= at position 15 (help)

• "Prospero Podiani", Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian), 2015

Category:Libraries in Italy Category:Education in Perugia Category:1582 establishments Category:Buildings and structures in Perugia