Biblioteca Classense

The Biblioteca Classense is Ravenna's historic civic library, housed in a former Camaldolese monastery. Its collections include manuscripts, rare editions, maps, engravings and the city's historical archive, while its halls preserve the monastic setting in which the library took shape.

Why it matters

The Camaldolese monastery was founded in 1512. After the Battle of Ravenna that year, monks from the Abbey of Classe moved inside the city with their books, giving the new foundation its name. In 1803, following the Napoleonic suppression of monasteries, the collection became the city's public library and incorporated holdings from Ravenna's religious houses. Since 2002, a dedicated municipal institution has managed the library system from the Classense.

The library's holdings encompass around 850,000 documents, including ancient manuscripts, incunabula, maps, prints and photographs. Its collections connect Ravenna's monastic, literary and civic histories.

What to notice

The Aula Magna, commissioned by Abbot Pietro Canneti and frescoed by Francesco Mancini, was restored in 2025. The sixteenth-century refectory, now called the Sala Dantesca, contains Luca Longhi's painting of the Wedding at Cana and carved wooden telamons dated 1581.

The Raccolta Dantesca preserves first and rare editions of Dante's works. Codice Ravennate 429, a mid-tenth-century manuscript brought to Italy by Giovanni Aurispa in 1423, contains all eleven comedies of Aristophanes. The Petrarch collection includes a drawing attributed to Botticelli.

Context and history

The monastery's books became the foundation of Ravenna's civic library in 1803. The Classense now combines its historic holdings with the municipal historical archive and remains the principal seat of the city's library system. Its manuscripts, printed works and decorated rooms preserve the continuing relationship between scholarship and the city's civic life.