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Tursi Collection on Travel in Italy

Biographical overview

1968: Tursi (approximately 15,000 volumes by foreign travellers in Italy)

Angiolo Tursi (Taranto 1885 – Venice 1977), after completing his law studies in Rome, arrived in Venice as a young artillery officer during the First World War.

In Venice he devoted himself to humanistic studies, establishing contacts with leading figures in the city’s cultural milieu.

In 1930 he undertook the monumental project of collecting writings by foreign travellers to Italy—a lifelong enterprise that absorbed the greater part of his intellectual energies.

During the Second World War he joined the National Liberation Committee (Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale, CLN). Captured and subjected to prolonged torture by the Nazi-Fascists, he resisted without revealing the names of the leaders of the Venetian Resistance, becoming a symbol of moral fortitude for the city.

After the war he briefly held political office, withdrawing from public life in 1949.

the 17 classes of the tursi collection
misc. tursi a ritagli
Tursi
The donation

In 1968, Angelo Tursi donated his collection to the Biblioteca Marciana, dedicating it to the memory of his wife and son, who had died prematurely.

The collection entered the Library on 31 May 1968 and is regarded as the richest and most comprehensive archive devoted to “travel in Italy” currently in existence.

Extent (25,000 titles) and composition

The Tursi Collection comprises approximately 25,000 titles, together with watercolours, engravings, and drawings depicting Italian landscapes and monuments.

Tursi organised the material into 17 categories, corresponding to different types of travellers and to both real and imaginary journeys in the Bel Paese. These categories span virtually all fields of knowledge, reflecting the breadth and interdisciplinary nature of travel literature relating to Italy.

Outside these 17 categories is the Miscellanea category: a substantial body of heterogeneous material (loose sheets, newspaper clippings, offprints, and similar items) gathered and used by Tursi over the course of his long research. This material constitutes an essential tool for the study and interpretation of the collection as a whole.

A distinct section is formed by the Rari: a collection of more than 600 volumes that Angiolo Tursi regarded as the most valuable items in his library, including several manuscripts.

The collection is further complemented by the Bibliografia ragionata dei viaggiatori stranieri in Italia (Annotated Bibliography of Foreign Travellers in Italy), an extensive catalogue comprising approximately 80,000 entries arranged alphabetically by travellers’ names. It may be consulted upon request in the Library.

Inventories and catalogues

All volumes in the collection have been catalogued and are searchable in both the paper and electronic catalogues of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

The Misc. Tursi Ritagli, not individually described in the catalogues, are accompanied by a dedicated subject index printed in booklet form, available under the shelfmarks CONS. CAT. MSS. MARC. 0034 and LEO. D. 4076.

A selection of works from the collection is presented in Viaggiatori stranieri in Italia: Fondo Tursi

Further reading

  • Viaggiatori stranieri a Venezia. Quaderno guida della mostra commemorativa per il decimo anniversario della donazione di Angiolo Tursi alla Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana di Venezia, Venice, “Venezia mia” – Moncalieri, Centro interuniversitario di ricerche sul viaggio in Italia, 1979.
  • Giovanni Fazzini, “Angiolo Tursi e la sua raccolta presso la Biblioteca nazionale Marciana,” in Custodi della tradizione e avanguardie del nuovo sulle sponde dell’Adriatico, Bologna, CLUEB, [2006], pp. 315–325.
  • Nereo Vianello, La raccolta di Angiolo Tursi nella Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, Stamperia di Venezia, 1968.
The 17 categories of the Tursi Collection

I - CICERONI

II - LITERATI (Descriptive Writers)

 

III - ARTISTS

1. Painters, sculptors, architects.

2. Musicians.

3. Theatre practitioners and scholars

 

IV -SCHOLARS

1. Art scholars.

2. Scholars of archaeology, epigraphy, and numismatics.

3. Scholars of archives and libraries (librarians and archivists).

4. Scholars of customs and popular literature.

5. Scholars of cultural institutions and organisations.

 

V - RELIGIOUS FIGURES

1. Catholics.

2. Non-Catholics.

 

VI - POLITICIANS

1. Princes . (heads of state and members of ruling houses).

2. Government and party officials (statesmen, parliamentarians).

3. Diplomats.

4. Military personnel.

5. Publicists.

 

VII - SCIENTISTS

1. Economists, sociologists.

2. Technicians (plumbers, engineers, etc.).

3. Geographers.

4. Astronomers, meteorologists, climatologists.

5. Naturalists (palaeontologists, geologists, mineralogists, botanists, zoologists).

6. Physicians.

 

VIII - MOUNTAINEERS

 

IX - VARIOUS TRAVELLERS

(Merchants, industrialists, hoteliers, hunters, sportsmen, etc.)

 

X - WRITERS OF IMAGINARY JOURNEYS

 

XI - NOVELISTS AND PLAYWRIGHTS

1. French.

2. English.

3. Germans

4. Other nationalities.

5. Italian translations.

 

XI a - OTHER RELEVANT WORKS: “Travel in Italy” (literature, tourism, etc.)

 

XII - BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES ON TRAVELLERS

1. Literary figures

2. Artists

3. Politicians

4. Scientists

 

XIII - TRAVELS AND TRAVEL IMPRESSIONS BY ITALIANS

 

XIV - GUIDES

1. General itineraries and guides to Italy.

2. Guides to individual regions and special guides (in alphabetical order by region).

3. Guides to individual cities (in alphabetical order by city).

 

XV - BIBLIOGRAPHICAL WORKS

XVI - MISCELLANEOUS WORKS

XVII - PLATES AND ENGRAVINGS

Fondo Tursi-Sezione: Misc. Tursi A Ritagli

Subject Index

As part of the reorganisation and cataloguing, within the framework of the National Library Service, of the Miscellanea of the Tursi Collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, a new section entitled Misc. Tursi A Ritagli has been made available to the public.The section consists of a collection of articles relating to foreign travellers in Italy, selected by Angiolo Tursi, who had begun cataloguing the material himself by preparing a file for each article with its title, subject, and details of the periodical from which it was taken.

Traces of this unfinished cataloguing survive in the topographical catalogue of the collection (from letters A to H).

In reorganising the material, it was decided to begin the section anew, giving prominence exclusively to the person and subject who “narrates” Italy, as this was the only way to make the material readily accessible while economising resources.
The various writings, preserved in 26 numbered boxes (Misc. Tursi A 39–64), are arranged in 4,636 index cards (referred to as “sheets” in the index), on which Tursi himself pasted articles, reviews, photographs, brochures, and clippings—hence the name of the section—taken from newspapers and specialist journals and relating to Italian places, figures, and customs as described, depicted, or interpreted by foreign writers, artists, and political figures.

This heterogeneous material, drawn from major international newspapers and periodicals, dates from 1900 to 1965, with a particular focus on the years 1925–1950.