By Maryam Hosseinnia

In 1604, Frater Angelus Rocca donated twenty thousand books to the Biblioteca Angelica under following conditions: That they are not only for religious people to use but for must be available to the public. Hence, the Biblioteca Angelica became the first public library in the West, and later followed in Oxford and Milan.

The library specializes in the Italian history, Italian literature and history of reformation, counter reformation and religion. In 1765, three people were in charge of putting the library catalog together, it took them thirty years to make the whole library catalog, imagine!

Mauro Zennaro guided the tour of the library. We were taken to the lower level of the library, where we saw and touched the rare books of Bodoni (Il Manuale Tipografico)and Aldus Manutius (Poliphilo’s Strife of Love in a Dream). It was an heart stopping moment to finally see close up pages of Aldus Manuitus book.