Digital library

The Digital Library of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana comprises a wide range of digital resources, developed over time through national projects, institutional collaborations, and the library’s own initiatives.

At present, the digitised holdings are accessible through various access points, depending on the specific systems adopted for the description, preservation, and publication of the materials. The digital reproductions may be consulted, as appropriate, via the Internet Culturale portal, through the Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale catalogue (OPAC SBN), at dedicated workstations available on the premises, or within specific digital editions and thematic projects (as in the case of the digital edition dedicated to Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle).

In view of the variety of access channels currently available, two separate lists — manuscripts and printed material — are provided below, so as to offer an overview of the digitised collections and make them easier to identify.

Complete lists of the Library’s full and partial digitisations of manuscripts and printed material, accessible online (IC) or on-site (DIGIT). The lists are arranged by shelfmark (manuscripts) and by location (printed material); for each item, it is indicated whether it may be consulted online via Internet Culturale (IC) or on-site (DIGIT). Partial digitisations are highlighted in red, with details of the folios reproduced. In the list of printed material, the online catalogue identifier (BID SBN) is given next to the location.

Manuscripts

Arme, blasoni o insegne gentilitie delle famiglie patritie esistenti nella Serenissima Republica di Venetia: Vincenzo Coronelli’s armorial of Venetian families, in the Marciana copy Rari Veneti 687.

Il Campidoglio Veneto by Girolamo Alessandro Cappellari: Digital version of the register of Venetian noble families, accompanied by family trees (manuscripts It. VII, 15–18 = 8304–8307).

Historical Catalogues of Marciana Manuscripts: digitised catalogues of the Fondo Antico Zanetti – Greek, Latin, Italian, and French manuscripts – together with the manuscript inventories of the Appendice (Greek, Latin, and Italian manuscripts).

Cavalcaselle Collection: notebooks, papers, annotations, and books donated to the Marciana by the widow of the art historian Giovan Battista Cavalcaselle (1819–1897).

Manuscripts from the Musical Collections of the Biblioteca Marciana: two hundred musical manuscripts by composers such as Galuppi, Perez, Hasse, Albero, Marcello, and Scarlatti, from the collections of the Contarini and Canal families.

Manuscripts of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: an ongoing digital collection of the Library’s 13,000 manuscripts.

Fra’ Mauro’s World Map:

• Nanyang Technological University, Singapore: Fra Mauro’s World Map: Engineering Historical Memory
• Museo Galileo, Florence: Il Mappamondo di Fra’ Mauro
• Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation: Fra’ Mauro Map

Printed Books

Aldo Manuzio: Ten Typographical Interludes: a virtual exhibition created at the conclusion of the Marciana’s long tribute to Aldus Manutius, offering a small but significant selection from the Library’s collections.

GeoWeb: a database of approximately 29,000 cartographic and graphic documents; the images may be viewed through Internet Culturale (currently unavailable).

Incunabula in the Italian Vernacular: first or otherwise significant editions of eighty-one vernacular texts – ranging from chivalric romances and religious works to calendars – particularly important because they survive in rare or unique copies.

Pre-Unification Periodicals and Journals: a collection comprising more than sixty titles published between 1668 and 1916, held primarily by the Biblioteca Nazionale in Rome, the Biblioteca di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome, the Biblioteca Universitaria di Pisa, and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice.

RAME – RAriora Marciana Electronica: a selection of works of particular interest and consistent with the centuries-old history of the Library and the Republic of Venice: incunabula formerly owned by Cardinal Bessarion; incunabula and sixteenth-century editions printed and annotated by Aldus Manutius; and collections of compositions produced for major festivals and public celebrations.

Sacred Representations from the Giuntina Collection: more than one hundred editions constituting the three volumes of the Giuntina Collection (1555, 1560, 1578). This exceptionally rare collection includes the Florentine sacre rappresentazioni, a religious dramatic genre that flourished in Florence from the fifteenth century onwards.

Foreign Travellers in Italy – Tursi Collection: a selection of works on travel in Italy spanning four centuries, drawn from the Tursi Collection.

I-Tal-Ya Books Project: a collective catalogue of Hebrew printed books preserved in Italian state libraries and Jewish community collections; the catalogue includes 135 printed volumes held by the Marciana.

Archives

Opera dei Libri ai Soldati (1915–1920): a project involving the cataloguing and digitisation of the archive documenting the activities carried out by the Director of the Marciana, Giulio Coggiola (1878–1919), and the Deputy Director, Ester Pastorello (1884–1971), to organise the collection and distribution of books and periodicals to field hospitals near the front and to convalescent hospitals in the rear areas during the First World War.