Library - History of a specialized library

The International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, situated in the ex-convent of Saint Maglorio, was founded by Gaetano Ballardini on the occasion of the Exposition in 1908 devoted to the third centenary of the birth of the scientist from Faenza, Evangelista Torricelli. In 1912 the Statute, approved in a royal decree, established to collect publications in order to offer to the studious a bibliographic material about critic, history, art and ceramic technology.
In the course of the years the Library acquired several precious books so, when Ballardini took part in the 1st World Congress of Libraries and Bibliography in 1929, it was considered an important increasing source of material for Italy.
The development of the Library stopped during the Second World War, when the collections and the books were "evacuated" from the town in order to preserve them. Unfortunately more than half of the 10.800 books were stolen or destroyed after the collapse of the building where they were settled. At the same time, on May 13th 1944, also the Museum was bombarded and the seat of the Library was razed to the ground. In the postwar period the Library containing 4.000 saved books was reconstructed and the architect Ennio Golfieri designed the wooden bookcase. In the Fifties, thanks to a bequest made by Paolo Galli and to the generous donations made by Georges Haumont, the Cardinal Amleto Cicognani, the Count Zauli Naldi and Gaetano Ballardini, the gaps of the collection of the Library were filled in.
The increasing of the studies devoted to ceramics carried on in the last twenty years, the careful exchange programme, the acquisitions and the activity of review in the publication of the Museum "Faenza", have led to an enrichment of the Library that now has more than 50.000 books including items from all over the world.
Most of the publications about ceramics are arranged following a topographic order that includes all the nations and takes in a particular consideration the centres of ceramic production in Italy, with a section devoted to Faenza, and Europe; there are specialized sections devoted to the technology of the materials, the preservation and the restoration of ceramics.

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