Manuscripts and Rarities

The rare manuscripts area includes three different collections:
  • Manuscripts
  • Incunabula
  • Ancient book

Manuscripts

 The handwritten collections of the Library, about 8000 manuscripts, are constituted by funds belonging to supressed conventual libraries due to 19 June 1873 law and from what has come through the channels of access: purchases and gifts .

In the matter of Manuscript, the indication of each fund's provenance has been preserved, which is separately inventoried : Jesuit, Sessoriano, Minor collections, Ancient catalogues, Vittorio Emanuele, Greeks, and Oriental.

The music manuscripts fund has been digitalized and is consultable in the following adress:

Manuscripts are consultable in manuscripts and rare books room , where research instruments are available.

Incunabula

This sector deals with the cataloguing and valorization of ancient books produced from printing's origins to the XVI century and deals with all the information concerning this material. From the beginning of its activity, National Central Library of Rome has been always a reference point and a classification and collecting center of funds and printed works of the XV century, firstly cataloguing in a systematical way its own collection and afterwards extending the research to libraries from Rome and from Lazio, and then to all the libraries possessing incunabula in national territory.

In the early 30's, the editing of what afterwards became the IGI (Indice General of the incunabula of the libraries of Italy) was established inside the BNC's Department of Manuscripts; the initiative of a compilation of a union catalogue of incunabula preserved in Italian libraries was born from an idea of Director Giuliano Bonazzi. He established the general criteria and started the systematic collection of material; it was executed primarily with the perusal of printed catalogues and then requesting and obtaining the dispatch of incunabula's handwritten catalogues from Italian libraries. The publication itself of IGI began in 1943 with the printing of the first volume, including the letters A-B; other four volumes, until the completion of the alphabetical serie, followed at regular intervals; last volume (the fifth one: letters S-Z) was completed in 1972 . In the thirty years between the publication of the first and the last volume, it had been accumulating on the file catalogue a considerable quantity of corrections or clarifications, and -especially - additions. For scholars this large mass of material couldn't be left unused, and it was taken the decision to publish it as a supplement to the volumes containing the alphabetical series together with indexes and concordances, that are essential tools for the completeness and the consultation itself of the works. The sixth and last volume was published in 1981; with that,all the libraries named in IGI that hold at least one incunabulum reached the number of 800 - they were just 576 in the first volume - and the total registered samples were estimated to be over a hundred thousand, with 11.041 editions, 287 of these reported for the first time.

In the spring of 1992 the Rome's National Library joined, representing Italy, the ISTC project (Incunabula short-title catalog). On October of the same year was installed the ISTC data collection with a field destined to the location limited to Italy, in the rebuilt editorial office of IGI nearby the Department of Manuscripts and Rarities of the NCL. The work of IGI updating was resumed with the inclusion of not present libraries that reported the presence of incunabula after 1981.

The second and most important phase of work consisted on the insertion of incunabula’s locations in IGI; at the end of April 1993, all of the 78,000 locations in IGI, for a total of over one hundred thousand specimens which cover 11.041 editions, have been included in the ISTC database.
All of the work was transferred on magnetic media and was sent to London, where BL's colleagues placed them in the central ISTC.

Recently, with a continuous exchange of information between the NCLR's Office of Incunabula and all the colleagues engaged in the continuous ISTC updating from the British Library in London, the National Central Library of Rome contributed - and still contributes – to the development of what is starting to be a world catalogue of the incunabula: on January 2008, the database recorded 29,777 editions of evaluation of 30,000 printed works until 31st December 1500. The NCLR has also contributed - with the reproduction of 400 editions – to the INCIPIT project, financed by the European Community, which transferred on CD-ROM the recording of ISTC accompanied by images of historically significant papers in the description of incunabula. This project led into the publication of IISTC (Illustrated Incunabula short-title catalog) – that came to the second edition in 1998 - which contains all the database and the reproductions of 20% of the editions recorded in it.

NCLR owns 1620 editions of the 15th century, volumes come mainly from historical funds of the Libraries of Guilds suppressed in the late 19th century, and includes many unique pieces. Recently, the already valuable collection of the NCL was further enriched through the purchase of a unique-in the world copy of Virgil’s Works, printed in Milan by Ulrich Scinzenzeler in 1498.

The incunabula can be consulted in Sala manoscritti e rari and are available through the following means:



Ancient book

The area is responsible for cataloguing and development of ancient printed books published from 1501 to 1830 and bibliographic information related to this material and plays an important role, both theoretical and practical, in the cataloguing and study of the book produced by handprint sphere.

The ancient library collection shall consist of volumes received through donations and purchases, mainly by the volumes that belonged to religious corporations of the Libraries of Rome and province suppressed at the and of 19th (RD No. 1402, dated 19 June 1873), meeting to form the new National Library in Rome (1876).

Ancient printed books at the offices of the new National Library at the “Collegio romano dei Gesuiti”, in contrast to the manuscripts remained divided according to the source, were melted, rearranged and placed according with the format.

For some libraries old catalogues and / or inventories have been conserved edited during their transition to the National Library of Rome (Ancient Literature Fund manuscript).

During the cataloguing projects of the old printed editions in SBN-Libro antico , is active from 1994, with a constant increase, the archive owners and sources, available on request in seat.

On the basis of the old catalogues and inventories and on the origins of the owners it will be possible to virtually re-establish antique libraries, like it has been done with the “Farmacia del Collegio romano dei Gesuiti” library.

The Mar.T.E. database has been established, “Marche Tipografiche Editoriali di editori e tipografi italiani del Seicento”, which has more than 1,300 cards and is always increasing thanks to the cataloguing process.

The ancient editions are consultable in the Manuscripts and Rarities room and are available through the following instruments:


The Library is a partner of CERL - Consortium of European Research Libraries for the increase of the European database of antique books HPB-Hand Press Book, available from library workstations via password.

This area takes care of the cataloguing of publications prior to 1830 for funds received by the library thanks to purchases (Fondo Macchia) or gifts (Falqui Fund ).