Provincial Library

The Provincial Library of Salerno was founded in 1844, has a rich heritage of ancient books and is equipped with about three hundred thousand volumes.

The Provincial Library of Salerno is an ancient cultural institution, endowed with a beautiful history and a rich librarian heritage.

It was founded in 1843 in the then Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and is based in the former Benedictine monastery of La Maddalena, the seat of Real Liceo Tasso, the institution founded by Murat to compensate for the closure of the Medical School. At the Lycean are linked his early years of life, and professor of the Lyceum was Francesco Cerenza, the first director who ceded his private precious library.

But the heritage of the Library was considerably surrendered when after the Unity of Italy the ecclesiastical goods were expropriated, and among these books and manuscripts of the convent of the Holy Trinity of Baronissi, the convent of San Nicola della Palma, the Capuchins of Salerno and many other centres of the province.

The headquarters of the Lyceum was at a certain point abandoned by intrigue of the managers and moved to Palazzo Pinto, where it remained for years, until the bombings of the Second World War. From the previous period the figure of director Andrea Sinno, a lively cultural animator and founder of the first nucleus of the Provincial Pinacoteca must be remembered.

The damage of the war led to the degradation of the structure, which was abandoned to replace it with an inadequate accommodation at Palazzo Migliaccio-Grassi, waiting for a definitive settlement.

It was located in a new building in Via Valerio Laspro, and after long and tormented works it was inaugurated in 1977, but to have a real opening to the public it had to wait for 1992.

Currently, the librarian heritage is about three hundred thousand volumes, including an ancient fund of great value consisting of seventy incunabula, 1666 five hundred, as well as precious manuscripts and archive documents.