Biblioteca civica Vincenzo Joppi, Public library in Udine, Italy

The Biblioteca civica Vincenzo Joppi is Udine's main public library, with over 560,000 documents including books, periodicals, manuscripts, microfilms, CDs and DVDs. Its central seat is Palazzo Bartolini, a seventeenth-century palace donated to the city by Teresa Dragoni Bartolini, and it also runs eight district libraries across the city.

The library's origins trace to 1827, when Count Ottavio Tartagna donated 2625 volumes to Udine, though the books only arrived in 1856. The city formally established the Biblioteca civica on 22 December 1847, and it opened to the public on 2 May 1864 in the Palazzo Municipale. In 1866 it moved to Palazzo Bartolini, donated by Teresa Dragoni Bartolini, where it remains today.

The library is named after Vincenzo Joppi, its librarian from 1878 to 1900, who gathered documents on the history of Friuli from public and private archives and doubled the holdings. In 1907 Felice Momigliano moved the civic museums from Palazzo Bartolini to Udine Castle, freeing rooms for the library, and launched the "Bollettino della Civica Biblioteca e del Museo", published until 1913 with contributors such as Pio Paschini and Bindo Chiurlo.

The central library occupies the seventeenth-century Palazzo Bartolini, donated to Udine by Teresa Dragoni Bartolini in 1866, and administrative offices are still there. Eight neighbourhood branch libraries serve the rest of the city. The civic museums moved from the palace to Udine Castle in 1907, freeing space for the collections.

The library's name honours Vincenzo Joppi, librarian from 1878 to 1900, who doubled its holdings: works rose from 14,739 in 1877 to 35,248 in 1898, volumes to about 60,000. He had pledged in his 1878 competition application to give up any other occupation and devote himself solely to the institution.