Biblioteca nazionale Sagarriga Visconti-Volpi, Conservation library in Bari, Italy.
The Biblioteca nazionale Sagarriga Visconti-Volpi is a conservation library in Bari housed in a former municipal slaughterhouse building. The institution holds around 500,000 works, including rare manuscripts, historical documents, and ancient printed texts from various periods.
The library was founded in 1865 following Senator Girolamo Sagarriga Visconti-Volpi's donation of his document collection to the city. In 1958 it gained national institution status, expanding its role as a custodian of Italian cultural material.
The library keeps the personal papers of Terra di Bari figures such as Tommaso Fiore, Giovanni Modugno and Nicola Di Cagno Politi, alongside 818 original caricatures by Frate Menotti and the local-history collections donated by Giuseppe D'Addosio and Giuseppe De Ninno. Since 1985 an "Archivio regionale del libro" has gathered books published in Puglia.
Visitors find reading areas, study spaces for research, and access to computer stations with internet connection and specialized databases. The building is designed with accessibility for people with physical limitations in mind.
Since 1906 the institution has received one copy of every publication printed in the Bari province. This makes it a living archive of regional publishing history and how knowledge has been produced locally.
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