The Library rooms are open:
Monday - Friday > 09.30-13.30
Thursday > 09.30-13.30 / 14.30-17.30
Rule book
E-mail
on-line Catalogue until 2009
on-line Catalogue from 2010
1. On September 28th 1888 the Marquis G. Eroli made a gift to the Society of his Dante collection, which constituted the initial holding of the library-to-be. In addition to normal acquisitions, the library subsequently acquired the Franchetti Collection (1907) and the Giuliani Collection (given in permanent trust by the City Council of Florence in 1913). In 1939 the Vandelli family donated the papers of Giuseppe Vandelli relating to his work on textual variants in the manuscripts of the Commedia. These various collections together form the historical section of a library that today contains about 22,000 volumes, 120 current periodicals (35 of them non-Italian) and 300 ‘dead’ periodicals. The library also owns 25 incunabula, 152 sixteenth-century books and 8 manuscripts. In 1984 the Library acquired the Baranelli Collection, in 1991 the Vandelli Collection of books, and in 1994 the Chiari Collection.
2. All the books are catalogued in electronic form and can be consulted online by connecting to these pages (the database is updated twice a year in July and in December). Moreover, the Society is present in the catalogue of the “Sistema Documentario Integrato dell’Area Fiorentina” (SDIAF) (Integrated Documentary System of the Florentine Area) which the City of Florence has created in order to facilitate its use through a sole interface for the consultation of a sole catalogue containing the heritage of books and civic documents.
3. In addition to this specialist library there is also a rich microfilm and photographic archive (the microfilms alone numbering about 1500), which collects documentation on every manuscript of Dante interest, for the exclusive use of the Editors of the National Edition of his works. Besides the Society has recently begun to store these microfilm images in electronic form (CD-ROM) to preserve the material.
4. Library services include consultation (also through a computer at users' disposal), borrowing, photocopying of books, printer use.
The photocopying of articles and parts of books
is subject to current copyright laws.
The following cannot be borrowed or photocopied:
all the books published before 1935, volumes from the Eroli, Franchetti and Giuliani Collections; rare books; items from the collections of source material; periodicals, encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference works.
Microfilms and photographic material are not available for borrowing (see 3).
The Library remains closed for the whole month of August.