Biblioteca Civica “Giovanni Ferrero”

Alba's public library is an institution with a long civic history: documented since 1868, renamed for Giovanni Ferrero in 1960, and housed since 1971 in the former convent of the Maddalena. It is the network centre of a library system covering thirty-nine Langhe municipalities.

Why it matters

Few provincial libraries carry this double role. Institutionally, the Biblioteca Civica is one of Alba's principal cultural presences and the coordinating hub of the Sistema bibliotecario delle Langhe, a network that the national daily La Stampa describes as uniting thirty-nine municipalities and four associations. Its collections preserve research on the Langhe and Roero, including the region's wine, truffle and partisan histories.

What to notice

The library's local-history collections cover Alba, the Langhe and Roero. Its newspaper and periodical archive includes microfilm of local publications. The institution occupies the former convent of the Maddalena, a religious complex attested from the fifteenth century, and includes exhibition spaces for material connected with local publishing and civic history.

Context and history

A civic library in Alba is documented from at least 1868, when the town approved a provisional regulation placing it in the local college, today's classical lyceum. Holdings grew in 1870 with books loaned by the Accademia filarmonico-letteraria, and in the early twentieth century the institution was named after Michele Coppino, the Alba-born politician and education minister. In 1960, after a renovation supported by Ottavia Amerio, it was rededicated to Giovanni Ferrero of the confectionery family whose name remains attached to civic and cultural life in Alba. After a temporary home at San Secondo, the library moved into the Maddalena complex in 1971; the interiors were fully restored in 1987 to a design by the architect Ugo Dellapiana. The complex also houses the Federico Eusebio Civic Museum and the MUDET truffle museum.