The ducal library of the Savoy family, forerunner of today’s national library, began to originate in the 13th on the initiative of Count Peter II of Savoy, who, a lover of the arts, commissioned writers and illuminators to reproduce texts that were difficult to find, going on to form what for the time was one of the most important manuscript collections in Europe. His successors further implemented the dynastic collection through book acquisitions and the commissioning of various works; a fundamental impetus came with Amadeus VIII, the first to bear the title of Duke: under his rule the library, still itinerant at the time, exceeded 100 codicological units and was endowed with its first inventory, dating from 1431.
The collection was further enriched in the 14th century through donations, requisitions, and hereditary bequests, which complemented the acquisitions: among the most important volumes were manuscripts from the 1300s/400s in French and beautifully illuminated incunabula.
The emergence of printing encouraged further growth of the library’s holdings, and a new inventory in 1498 quantified the ducal library’s holdings as 311 manuscript or printed books.
It was, however, thanks to Duke Emanuele Filiberto that, along the lines of an administrative and cultural reorganization of the duchy, in the mid-1500s the volumes were actually organized into a library, the first person in charge of which was Ludovico Nasi. In these years the ever-widening dissemination of the press and Emanuele Filiberto’s multiple cultural interests favored the growth of the collections with texts in the legal, medical, military and scientific fields. To this period dates the monumental but unfinished project for the creation of a “Theater of all sciences and arts,” an encyclopedia of knowledge for which numerous books were purchased throughout Europe.
With his successor Charles Emmanuel I, the library reached its heyday in the early 1600s, having its headquarters at the Grande Galleria, a sleeve connecting the present Royal Palace of Turin and Palazzo Madama; important funds and collections were acquired, such as the library of Cardinal Domenico della Rovere and manuscripts from Staffarda Abbey, thus coming to include more than 10,000 volumes.
The successors of Charles Emmanuel I did not manifest the same cultural interests as their predecessors, and so in the second half of the 17th century the ducal library went through a phase of decay and neglect accentuated by the fire of 1667. Although most of the volumes were saved, they were locked in various boxes and left in a state of neglect for more than 30 years. It was not until 1713 that the new librarian Filiberto Maria Machet worked to recover the books and restore the library’s functionality. In order to ensure its better preservation and enhancement, in 1723 Duke Victor Amadeus of Savoy ordered its union with the collections of the royal university and those of the municipality, forming the first nucleus of the Royal University Library, from which the modern National Library descends.