The Biblioteca Marciana

The Biblioteca Marciana is located in St. Mark’s Square, between the Bell Tower and the Mint, and is the most important library in Venice and one of the largest in Italy. In its interior have been collected important manuscripts in Greek, Latin and Eastern languages.

Although in 1362 the famous poet Petrarch had presented the first proposal for the creation of a public library in Venice, the first part of the library was founded only in 1468 thanks to Cardinal Bessarion, who donated to the Republic of Venice a collection of more than 700 codes to which another 250 manuscripts were added upon the death of the donor. Later, Venice became the most important center for the study of the Greek classics, thanks to new donations and additions from other libraries of the city and the republic. At that time, the city attracted the most important humanist scholars, many of whom gathered around the editor Aldo Manuzio.

At the beginning of the ‘600 a law was promulgated that forced the publishing houses to deposit a copy of each printed book in the Biblioteca Marciana, becoming thus the institutional library of the Republic. Between 1811 and 1924, the library moved to the Doge’s Palace, however, shortly afterwards it returned to its original seat. Inside the Biblioteca Marciana are the two most famous codes of the Iliad, Homerus Venetus A and B, a large collection of maps and atlas, the Magna Chronology of Fra Paolino, a manuscript of Pliny from 1481 formerly belonging to Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and a copy of the first book printed in Venice, the Epistles to the Family of Cicero.

Find the Biblioteca Marciana on the Map