The Biblioteca Casanatense (Via di Sant'Ignazio 52, Rome, in the convent of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the Dominican church 200 metres from the Pantheon, whose conventual complex houses the library that Cardinal Girolamo Casanate founded in 1701 and donated to the Dominican Order with the specific condition that the collection be open to the public in perpetuity) is the most visually spectacular historic library interior in Rome and one of the finest Baroque library rooms in Italy: the main reading hall (the "Salone Casanatense", the long galleried hall built between 1698 and 1701 to house the Cardinal's book donation, approximately 70m long, 13m wide, and 20m high, with the original 18th-century wooden bookcases rising to the full height of the hall in both tiers) is the specific architectural monument that makes the Casanatense a destination beyond its bibliographic importance.
The Casanatense collection (currently approximately 300,000 volumes, including 2,200 manuscripts, 1,750 incunabula, the second largest incunabula collection in Rome after the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, and the most complete collection of 17th-18th century Italian printed books in any single Roman library) is the Dominican Order's intellectual treasury: the specific Dominican intellectual tradition (Thomas Aquinas, the Thomistic theology, the Inquisition documentation, the Casanatense holds significant material from the Inquisition trial records that passed through the Dominican archival system) gives the collection its specific scholarly character. The Casanatense is both a functioning research library and, through the Galleria Casanatense (the permanent exhibition space in the antechamber to the main hall), a museum of the history of the book open to the public without research accreditation.
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Biblioteca Casanatense: Hall, Collection, and Visit
The Salone Casanatense
The main reading hall (open Monday-Friday 9:00-19:00 for accredited researchers. The Galleria Casanatense exhibition space accessible to the general public during the same hours, check casanatense.it for the current public access arrangements, which have varied with the library's restoration schedule) is the primary Casanatense experience: the entrance from the convent cloister, the transition from the 17th-century Dominican convent architecture to the late Baroque library hall, and the specific first sight of the 70-metre hall with its double-tiered bookcases rising to the painted ceiling constitute the finest single library interior moment in Rome. The painted ceiling (the 18th-century fresco cycle depicting the allegories of Learning, Knowledge, and the Dominican intellectual tradition) is visible from the hall floor and provides the specific Baroque illusionistic quality that the hall's proportions require.
The Incunabula and Manuscripts
The Casanatense incunabula collection (1,750 books printed before 1501, the second largest in Rome, the largest accessible to researchers without Vatican accreditation) includes the specific Dominican printing tradition of the 15th century: the early printed editions of Thomas Aquinas (the 1477 Cologne edition of the Summa Theologiae, one of the first printed complete editions), the early Italian printed bibles, and the specific humanist texts produced by the Dominican-affiliated presses of Venice and Rome in the 1470s-1490s. Access to the collection for research purposes: register through the Casanatense online portal (polo.sbn.it/casanatense) with institutional affiliation. Incunabula and manuscripts require specific advance request.
Q&A: Biblioteca Casanatense
How does the Casanatense compare to the Biblioteca Angelica?
The two historic Roman public libraries (both founded within a century of each other, the Angelica in 1614, the Casanatense in 1701) are the best pair for a Rome historic library day: morning at the Angelica (the Augustinian foundation, the earlier, more intimate hall, 15 minutes from the Casanatense). Afternoon at the Casanatense (the Dominican foundation, the more spectacular hall, the larger collection). Both are within 400 metres of the Pantheon and can be combined in a single half-day literary Rome circuit.
Internal Links
- Biblioteche Storiche Roma: Il Circuito Completo
- Biblioteca Vallicelliana: La Terza Grande Biblioteca
- Roma Barocca: Dal Pantheon alla Casanatense
- Roma Invernale: Le Sale di Lettura Storiche
- Fotografare il Salone Casanatense
- Incunaboli Roma: I Libri del XV Secolo
- Roma Nascosta: Le Biblioteche dei Conventi
