Mapping Knowledge

The Historical Library and Archives of Accademia di Belle Arti di Carrara preserve an extraordinary corpus of printed works, engravings, and documentary materials that trace the evolution of the Academy’s educational and cultural mission since its foundation in 1769. This project aims to study, catalogue, and enhance this heritage, focusing particularly on the bibliographic and archival materials that have supported artistic education and research throughout the Academy’s history.

The Historical Library (Fondo Antico) contains around 7,000 printed works dating from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, including two remarkable editions of Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie (Lucca, 1758-1776; Livorno, 1770-1778) and the monumental Le Antichità di Ercolano esposte (Naples, Regia Stamperia, 1755-1792). The complete library holdings, numbering approximately 30,000 volumes, are accessible through the online catalogue (https://reprobi.erasmo.it).

The Academy Archives, distributed across several rooms on the ground and first floors of Palazzo Malaspina, contain continuous documentation from 1769 to the present day. The only major relocation occurred in 1810, when Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi transferred the Academy to its current seat. Since then, the archive has grown steadily alongside the institution’s development, preserving a detailed record of its pedagogical, administrative, and cultural activities.

This extensive documentary corpus illustrates the Academy’s role as both an educational institution and a cultural centre. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, its directors, teachers, and honorary members, many of them distinguished figures in the arts and public life–strengthened its prestige and promoted initiatives such as the Pensionato di Scultura e Architettura and the Bernardo Fabbricotti Prize for sculpture, ornament, and architecture.

The Sala degli Uomini Illustri, adjacent to the Library, houses the largest segment of the historical archive (1805–1955), including registers of correspondence, administrative acts, and records related to teaching, staff, and students. The Oreste Raggi Room preserves nineteenth- and twentieth-century materials concerning the School of Artisans (1884-1930), the Evening Art School (1900-1971), the Life Drawing School (1927-1988), and Sculpture Courses and Competitions (1940s-1970s).

The Secretariat Archives hold administrative, teaching, and financial documentation from the 1980s onwards. The Academy also preserves important personal archives, including those of Carlo Del Medico, Ezio Dini, and Domenico Zaccagna, which comprise correspondence, press clippings, books, drawings, and photographs, essential sources for the study of local and national artistic culture.

At present, 29,190 volumes are inventoried, of which 25,137 are catalogued via the Erasmo network software, with 10,651 titles available through the SBN national catalogue. The archival holdings, amounting to several hundred thousand physical items, present a more complex situation, with partial or fragmentary inventories and some materials unlisted or recorded only in preliminary consistency registers.

Within the IartNET PNRR framework, the project focuses on identifying, cataloguing, and digitising those bibliographic and archival resources most relevant to the teaching history of the Academy. 

For the Historical Library, the project selects printed works related to engraving techniques (woodcut, etching, lithography), as well as anatomy and architecture, prioritising items distinguished by their rarity, scholarly value, and state of preservation.

For the archival holdings, the project targets a specific chronological range in order to identify materials documenting the acquisition and use of teaching models and tools, including plaster casts and their moulds, as well as records of departments, courses, and schools. The selected materials, protocol registers, inventories, photographs, and correspondence, are prioritised for digitation and online access.

Actions

In keeping with IartNET’s principles of internationality, accessibility, and inclusion, the project undertakes the following actions:

• Reconstruct missing materials: Create a digital section dedicated to “what is missing” from the inventories, including a virtual reconstruction of books stolen during the 1981 library theft. Using the existing list, digital surrogates of the same editions (where available from other libraries) are linked and made accessible through the platform.
• Develop a Digital Library: Establish a Digital Library of selected archival and bibliographic materials, enabling remote consultation and research.
• Cataloguing and data integration: Catalogue items using the OA model, or another template provided by the lead institution, in accordance with current ministerial standards for this category of heritage. Cataloguing activities are supported by research fellows and scholarship students trained in heritage documentation.