Contribution to the history of the Naples Conservatory Library during the years 1889-1935

Abstract

The history of the library of the Conservatorio S. Pietro a Majella is still little known, particularly for the years following the death of Francesco Florimo, librarian from 1826 to 1888. The librarians who succeeded Florimo were all well-known personalities in the literary and musical world of the time and contributed notably to the present set-up and organization of the library.
On the basis of documents in the Conservatory Archives, the paper reconstructs approximately fifty years of the history of the library. Contrary to what has long been assumed, the library added to its original collection also after Florimo. In particular, when Rocco Pagliara was librarian (for over twentyfive years), the library acquired important autographs, first editions, librettos, letters and heirlooms. The management of Pagliara, however, was so chaotic and 'personal' that a ministerial inspection became necessary in 1914. The inspection marks a significant moment in the life of the library as it was then put in the hands of the poet and scholar Salvatore Di Giacomo, librarian of the Biblioteca Nazionale of Naples, who brought his experience of twenty years in a public library to the Conservatory and provided S. Pietro a Majella, for the first time, with inventories, registers and regulations. His successor, Fausto Torrefranca, musicologist of international fame, drew up extensive plans for restructuring the library - since he considered that, given its importance, it should be transformed into an up-to-date centre of study and research equal to the other major music libraries of the world - but did not succeed in realizing them. After him, Guido Gasperini, president of the Association of Italian Musicologists, renewed the patient work of inventorying the immense patrimony of the library that had been begun by Di Giacomo and completed the cataloguing of the autograph material and of the historical collection, publishing in 1934 the printed catalogue which still today represents an indispensable tool for consulting the greater part of the original fondo of the library of the Conservatorio di S. Pietro a Majella.