National Central Library of Florence

National Central Library of Florence.

The National Central Library of Florence is one of two national libraries in Italy , along with the National Central Library of Rome .

The library was founded in 1714 , when the famous Italian scientist Antonio Maliabeki bequeathed his collection of books , which covered approximately 30,000 volumes, to the city of Florence .

Originally known as the Malabyaki Library (Maliabechi), it was opened to the public in 1747 .

In 1861, the library fund was merged with the fund of another library - “Biblioteca Palatina” and in 1885 it was renamed the National Central Library of Florence.

Since 1870, the library collects copies of all Italian publications.

Since 1935, book collections have been housed in a building designed by Cesare Bazzani and located along the Arno River. Before that, they were located in the premises belonging to the Uffizi Gallery.

The severe flood in 1966 , when the Arno River flooded a large part of the city, was damaged by nearly one-third of the library’s book collection, and periodicals and several rare book collections were particularly damaged.