A national library in Italy is one designated by the government as one that contains items of importance to the entire nation in a vast array of disciples—science, literature, art, music, history, theater,etc. They are not public lending libraries, an institution that still has not taken much hold in Naples (but see ”Community Libraries”).

Before the unification of Italy, each state on the peninsula, obviously, had its own libraries. After unification, Florence was designated as the first city in Italy to hold a national library; then, when Rome was added to the national patchwork in 1871, it, too, had a national library. Today, many Italian large cities have something called a national library. The one in Naples, in quantitative terms, is the third largest in Italy (after Rome and Florence) and is one of the 3705 libraries in Italy currently hooked into SBN (Servizio bibliotecario nazionale), the nationwide library catalogue data base.

The National library is housed in the large east wing of the Royal Palace in Naples (the photo, above, is of the southern façade, facing the sea). The main entrance is not obvious; that is, both gates to the large gardens on the east side of the San Carlo opera have been closed for years. Entrance is from Piazza Trieste e Trento (aka San Ferdinando) from the side of the main west wing of the palace, at which point you wander back through the grounds until you find the entrance to the library. As strange as it seems, it works better that way. You don’t want tourists and other ne'er-do-wells flooding through the gardens while you are trying to read.

The origins of the National Library are in the late 18th century, when the Bourbons ruled the kingdom of Naples. The book collection in the royal palace of Capodimonte was moved to the old university building (the site of today’s Archaeological Museum. The nucleus of that collection was the Farnese book collection, property of Charles III, the first Bourbon ruler of Naples. The library was opened by Ferdinand IV in 1804 as the Royal Library of Naples. During the subsequent nine years of Bourbon absence and—importantly—anti-clerical French presence under Murat, the collection was augmented enormously as monasteries throughout the kingdom shut down; a thousand years of manuscripts and books held in monasteries throughout the south became property of the state. That situation was repeated throughout Italy after the unification of the nation in 1861 under the anti-clerical Italian government.

Various private collections and important archaeological finds such as the scrolls of the Herculaneum papyri found their way into the Naples library such that the old university building was too small to contain everything. Except for the dilapidated and never-finished old Royal Poorhouse, the only single building in Naples that could house it all was the Royal Palace. Benedetto Croce was instrumental in getting the city to move the library to that location in the 1920s.

Both WWII and the 1980 earthquake damaged the library. (The damage included a particularly mindless episode of cultural vandalism on the part of retreating German forces in 1943—they decided to burn as many books as they could before leaving. The library has come back and since 1990 is part of the above-mentioned SBN. The library hosts cultural activites, seminars and lectures. Besides the obvious cultural “biggies” such as the Herculaneum papyri, there is a significant collection of material relevant to the history of southern Italy; as well, there are important collections at secondary branches in other parts of town. There is also the usual, large selection of old journals and newspapers and a workshop/laboratory for the preservation and restoration of books. The Italian Ministry for Culture lists the holdings of the Naples library as 1,480,747 printed volumes; 319,187 pamphlets; 18,415 manuscripts; over 8,000 periodicals; 4,500 incunabula (i.e. printed material from before 1500); and the 1,800 Herculaneum papyri.