ITALY'S LIBRARY PATRIMONY...and the enigmatic VERONA RIDDLE
The Italian Ministry of Culture has embarked on a nationwide campaign to promote its 7,425 public and state libraries, many of which are of great historical interest, containing rare books, ancient documents, illuminated manuscripts and other treasures. Despite this, most are little known or frequented by the general public. To make these rich houses of learning better known, the Ministry has commissioned a promotional video called “Extraordinary Journeys” showing actors in historic costumes of various eras eagerly perusing the book shelves, produced in collaboration with the Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematogtafia (Centre of Experimental Cinema Foundation)..
According to pre-Covid statistics, just over 58% of Italian towns possess at least one library. The largest public library is in Florence where the National Central Library has a collection of just under 9 million volumes, followed by the Rome Central National Library (over 6 million books), then the Victor Emmanuel III Library of Naples and Bologna's University Library.
Italy's oldest library still in use is the Biblioteca Capitolare attached to Verona Cathedral, which was founded at the beginning of the 6th century AD. Badly damaged during WWII, it was rebuilt in 1948. This library contains a curiosity in the form of a parchment with a riddle, written by a monk in the 8th-9th century AD. The “Veronese Riddle” is a short poem in what is arguably the first known text in late Latin Vulgate or early Romance language. The cryptic text describes a plough drawn by white oxen sowing a row of black seeds in a white field that scholars have interpreted as a metaphor for a hand writing lines of black ink on a white page.
Info: https://librari. beniculturali.it
