La Biblioteca Pubblica Arcivescovile “Annibale De Leo” di Brindisi

Abstract

Annibale de Leo (1739-1814) founded in Brindisi in 1798, with royal approval, the first public library in the land of Otranto. About 6.000 volumes of his private collection were gathered there, enriched by the purchase of part of Cardinal Giuseppe Renato Imperiali’s collection. Today the number of volumes, both ancient and modern, amounts to 150.000 and there are 100.000 ongoing and suspended periodicals. The archive consists of 400 manuscripts related to the south and the north of Italy, the history of the Holy Roman Empire and of the church, the physical sciences and astronomy, Latin, Greek, Italian and vernacular literature, law, philosophy, geology, agriculture, heraldry and art history. The library also has 17 incunabola, various fine bindings and documentation from private archives.