The National University Library of Turin is one of the most important public libraries in Italy.
Its official foundation dates back to around 1723 when, by will of the sovereign Victor Amedeus II of Savoy, the three main book collections present in the city were merged into the new location of the Royal University situated in via Po: the collections of the Municipality, those of the Royal University and the books of the House of Savoy.
During the eighteenth century the number of volumes was significantly increased thanks to the compulsory payment for academic publications, the regular purchases of books and entire collections and through important donations. Further collections arrived following the suppressions of the Society of Jesus and the conventual orders in the Napoleonic era.
Between 1809 and 1815 the library of Tommaso Valperga di Caluso was purchased, with its numerous Hebrew, Arabic and Indian manuscripts. Between 1820 and 1824, thanks to the tenacious commitment of Amedeo Peyron, 69 manuscripts from the suppressed monastery of San Colombano in Bobbio were confiscated. In the nineteenth century, the Library came into possession of the manuscripts of Prince Carlo Emanuele Dal Pozzo della Cisterna, the manuscripts of the earl Cesare Saluzzo, the books of the Professor Giuseppe Biamonti, the Aldine collection of the Marquis Carlo Alfieri di Sostegno, the manuscripts of Prospero Balbo and Carlo Denina’s autographs. At the same time, the collections were enriched thanks to the printing right granted by King Charles Albert in 1848.
The Royal Decree no. 2974 of 20 January 1876 established the new name “National University Library”, placing it among the first level autonomous libraries with the task “of representing, in its continuity and wholeness, the progress and state of Italian and foreign culture”.
At the turn of the century, the hypothesis of the construction of a new location began to emerge, but it was put off due to various adversities: first the fire of January 1904, which devastated a good part of the precious manuscript collections; subsequently the damage inflicted by the bombings of December 1942.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the block that had been chosen to host the new location was occupied partly by the ancient Stables of Palazzo Carignano, built in 1790 based on a design by Filippo Castelli, and partly by the Palazzo del Debito Pubblico, built in 1842 based on a design by Alessandro Antonelli. In 1936 the entire area was handed over to the National Library and the following year the Municipality of Turin undertook demolition works, safeguarding only the neoclassical façade of the former Stables on Piazza Carlo Alberto, destined to become the main façade of the new library. The construction site suffered an abrupt interruption during the Second World War.
In 1956 the Ministry of Public Works finally announced the competition for the construction of the new building in Piazza Carlo Alberto, entrusting the task to the architects Carbonara, Insolera, Liviadotti, Quistelli and Amodei. The works started in 1959, continued throughout the following decade, until the definitive opening to the public on 15 October 1973. Two years later the historic restoration laboratory, created following the fire of 1904, was moved into the new building, while on 15 February 1976 the official inauguration of the new location took place. Among the most functional aspects of the new building, the automatic transport system for books from the warehouses to the reading, lending and periodicals rooms stood out, solved with a Siemens machine of conveyor belts connected to a continuously moving Paternoster elevator.
Thanks to the twentieth century acquisitions, today the Library possesses a considerable heritage which consists of over 1550000 volumes. Among the most important collections, the autographs of Foscolo, Gioberti, Pellico and Tommaseo stand out; the studies and geographical drawings of Agostino Codazzi; the Foà-Giordano collections containing the autograph manuscripts of Antonio Vivaldi; the Corpus Juvarrianum, which collects over a thousand drawings by the architect Filippo Juvarra; the Regina Margherita collection, with more than 13000 volumes belonging to the first queen of Italy; the 1904 fund, so called in reference to the set of volumes received after the fire of 1904 as symbolic compensation for the huge losses suffered, a story that testifies to the centrality of the theme of the gift in the history of the Library and for its development as a vital organism.