Biblioteca Malatestiana

The Malatestiana Library in Cesena preserves a Renaissance reading room that has remained substantially unchanged since 1454. Built for Malatesta Novello within a Franciscan convent, it is recognised as Italy's first civic library and was inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register in 2005.

Why it matters

The library is a rare surviving example of a fifteenth-century humanist collection preserved in its original setting. The building and its manuscripts have remained closely connected, with books held at the reading desks for which the room was designed. Its UNESCO inscription recognised the library as the first Italian entry on the Memory of the World Register.

What to notice

The reading room resembles a small church, with a barrel-vaulted nave between two cross-vaulted aisles. Twenty columns carry capitals carved with shields and pendant foliage. The hall contains fifty-eight original reading desks, twenty-nine along each side, still holding chained codices. A door by Cristoforo da San Giovanni in Persiceto bears the date 15 August 1454. An inscription credits architect Matteo Nuti of Fano and records the work's completion in 1452. Daylight from the windows illuminates the room and its floor inscriptions.

Context and history

The Franciscan convent had maintained a studium and library since the fourteenth century. In 1450, Malatesta Novello commissioned a new library within the convent, adapting the model of Michelozzo's library at San Marco in Florence. The Franciscan scriptorium produced more than 120 codices in about twenty years; Malatesta commissioned or acquired roughly 150 more. Gifts from Giovanni di Marco included Greek and Hebrew manuscripts. The collection grew to 343 manuscripts, alongside printed works by authors from Cesena.