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The collection, donated by the AIMS Charity Foundation, which promotes the research and development of medical and healthcare training in Italy and around the world, contains medical and healthcare manuals and volumes dedicated to preparation for public competitions.

For information: Chemistry and Biology Library of Santa Maria delle Grazie

The collection is made up of around 15000 documents, including monographs, journals and catalogues belonging to Professor Eugenio Battisti (1924-1989). An art and architecture historian, director, and theatre and music critic, his collection testifies to his vast, original, multi-disciplinary approach to research. The collection is kept at Palazzo Tibertelli, in Via del Gregorio 13.

To find out more

The collection of Eugenio Battisti

For information: marina.contarini@unife.it, eventi.sba@unife.it

The collection of books donated to the University of Ferrara by Professors Maria Teresa Borgato and Luigi Pepe, former lecturers at the University of Ferrara Mathematics Department, regards the history of mathematics education, and is made up of 551 works dating from between the 1500s and the middle of the 1900s. They are elementary mathematics books, designed for teaching in colleges, high schools and universities. The study of these texts, collected by the two academics over the years, has opened up new possibilities for research in the field of the history of mathematics education. There is a volume dedicated to this topic, Teaching mathematics: the history of mathematics education in Italy (2016). In 2020, the collection was sent to the Library of the Mathematics and Information Technology Department at the University of Ferrara, and can be consulted by students intending to teach in schools and academics who would like to work in mathematics education, making use of this valuable experience from the past.

For information: Mathematics Library

This is an important collection of archives and books that documents sixty years of scientific activity of Professor Gaetano Boschi (1882-1969), a lecturer at various universities and director of the Ferrara Provincial Asylum.

Boschi was a neuropsychiatrist of international renown and a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Medicine; during the First World War he directed the Villa del Seminario Military Neurological Hospital in Ferrara, leading innovative studies on war trauma.

To find out more

For reorganisation, inventory and promotion activities, consult Current Projects

For information: Chemistry and Biology Library of Santa Maria delle Grazie

The collection is made up of around 400 documents, including books and pamphlets, on legal and philosophical topics; the donation was made between 1984 and 1986. In 1952, shortly after the establishment of CECA (the first European Community), Professor Bruni Roccia was one of the founders of what is now the Centre for Documentation and Study on the European Union (CDE).

For information: Law Library

The personal library of Professor Vincenzo Cavallari (1919-2000), Dean of the Law Faculty from 1973 to 1979, reflects his position as an eminent scholar of criminal justice, a politician and a university lecturer. The collection, donated by the Cavallari family in 2003, is made up of 2490 volumes and 571 annals of legal journals, and is located in the Cavallari Room at Palazzo Giordani.

To find out more

Cristina Baldi, Library donations in Stories of books and palaces. Discovering the cultural heritage of the University of Ferrara, edited by Cristina Baldi and Paola Iannucci, UnifePress, 2021, pp. 116-121

For information: Law Library

Professor Chiesa (1937-2009), former Director of the Radiology Department at the University of Brescia, donated his collection of 4000 vinyl records of classical music and opera to the Literature Library; the material is accompanied by three handwritten catalogues (by author, by soloist and by musical instrument) created by the professor himself.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library

The collection was donated to the Law Library in 2017 and contains 154 volumes and the Rivista di diritto civile, a respected, prestigious journal. The collection, which testifies to Professor Giorgio Cian's scientific activity in the fields of Private Law and Civil Law, is located in the Sala Doni at Palazzo Giordani.

For information: Law Library

The collection is named after Trieste mathematician Fabio Conforto (1909-1954), one of the leading exponents of the Italian school of algebraic geometry between the 1930s and the beginning of the 1950s. Donated in 2008 by the descendants of the Conforto family and acquired by the University of Ferrara through Professors Enrico Giusti and Luigi Pepe, the collection is made up of a rich library of 700 scientific volumes and 2600 scientific pamphlets. These works range from pure to applied mathematics, and also include texts on logic and fundamentals, and historical and philosophical works. The authors are exponents of the national and international scientific community.

For information: Mathematics Library

The Fantappiè collection, owned by mathematician Luigi Fantappiè (1901-1956), was acquired on the initiative of Professors Mario Fiorentini and Luigi Pepe. It includes a total of around 4700 pamphlets and extracts, ordered alphabetically by author and stored in 51 containers. The authors most represented are mostly Italian contemporaries of Fantappiè: not only analysts, algebraists, geometrists and mathematical physicists, but also scholars of history and mathematics education.

To find out more

The Fantappiè collection at the Mathematics Library

For information: Mathematics Library

The collection includes around 4300 volumes of history and contemporary art criticism, as well as exhibition catalogues that provide valuable documentation of artistic debate after the Second World War. Franco Farina, who died in 2018, was the Director of the Ferrara Civic Galleries of Modern and Contemporary Art from 1963 to 1993. It was thanks to his profound knowledge and intuition that in those years the city became a crossroads of new artistic trends and languages, and a location for events and exhibitions of international interest. The collection is kept at Palazzo Tibertelli, in Via del Gregorio 13.

For information: marina.contarini@unife.it, eventi.sba@unife.it

Mario Fiorentini (1918-2022), a partisan, intellectual and mathematician, became Professor of Higher Geometry at the University of Ferrara in 1971. In 1996, the professor donated his collection of pamphlets and around 200 books from his private library to the Mathematics and Information Technology Department Library.

Meanwhile, he designated a collection of around 500 books and journals, including many classics of world literature in valuable editions, to the Literature Library.

For information: Mathematics Library   Literature and Philosophy Library

The collection contains 127 volumes on maritime law and transport law, belonging to lawyer Zeno Forlati; the donation was made in 2015.

For information: Law Library

A lecturer at the Law Department and expert in violin music through the initiatives of the Committee for the Great Maestros (active in Ferrara for over twenty years), the professor donated a collection of musical scores (originals and reproductions) to the Literature Library, many of which are rare.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library

David Hirst (1942-1994) was an English director, playwright and academic who had a long collaboration with the University of Ferrara, to which he dedicated a collection of around 1500 books on literature, theatre and music in English.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library

Professor Merci (1945-2004) taught Romance Philology at the University of Ferrara, to which he donated a collection of around 1800 books on Romance philology and literary criticism.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library

The collection is made up of copies of documents (over one-thousand pages) obtained from the archives of the CIA, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Rome; the material was used by journalists Maurizio Molinari and Paolo Mastrolilli for the preparation of their book Italy seen by the CIA. 1948-2004, Laterza, 2005.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library

The Montesano Collection, which belonged to mathematician Domenico Montesano (1863-1930) and was acquired by Professor Margherita Beloch, was reorganised at the beginning of the 1980s by Professors Luigi Pepe and Giovanni Gambini. It includes a total of around 3440 pamphlets, mostly in Italian. There is a substantial number of pamphlets by authors connected to the University of Naples, where Montesano taught for over thirty years. Worth noting are also works primarily in the field of algebraic geometry, analysis and calculus of variations.

To find out more

The Montesano collection at the Mathematics Library

For information: Mathematics Library

The library collection that belonged to medical historian Ladislao Munster (1900-1971), a lecturer at the University of Ferrara from 1956 to 1971, was acquired by the university in 1971 on the proposal of former Chancellor Angelo Drigo. It is made up of over 2000 documents, including monographs (ancient and modern), pamphlets, extracts and annals of scientific journals.

The part of the collection containing primarily works of medical history and scientific thought is located at the Literature Library; other material is found at the Science and Technology Library, where it is also possible to consult titles on magic and the occult, testifying to the eclectic personality of the academic.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library   Science and Technology Library

Professor Luigi Pepe, Professor Emeritus at the University of Ferrara, donated the scientific publications and documents that make up his professional archive to the university in 2023. The donation, designated for the University of Ferrara Mathematics Library, aims to create an archival collection open to consultation from scholars of the history of mathematics, science and culture in the modern and contemporary age. It can be used by academics and researchers, and used for informative initiatives available to citizens and cultural tours.

For information: Mathematics Library

The library of Senator Luigi Preti (1914-2009), a politician, lawyer and member of the Italian Democratic Socialist Party, is made up of over 9000 documents, including books and journals. The volumes, donated in 2006, are organised according to precise thematic sections that follow the framework of the Dewey system. There are many handwritten and typewritten pages found inside the books, with Senator Preti's personal comments on the texts. The collection is kept in the Council Chamber at Palazzo Giordani.

To find out more

Cristina Baldi, Library donations in Stories of books and palaces. Discovering the cultural heritage of the University of Ferrara, edited by Cristina Baldi and Paola Iannucci, UnifePress, 2021, pp. 116-121

For information: Law Library

A professor of contemporary history at the University of Ferrara, at the end of his career, Salvatore Sechi donated a collection of around 3000 volumes to the Literature Library, primarily in the fields of contemporary history and politics.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library

The collection of around 600 volumes is made up of personal books donated by Professor Pietro Sitta (1866-1947), an economist who was a longstanding Chancellor of the Free University of Ferrara and a Senator of the Kingdom. The collection is primarily made up of 19th century editions of works of political economics and classics of economic theory.

For information: Economics Library

The collection includes around 1200 volumes mostly on the topic of civil law, donated in 2013 by Professor Sonnenberger. The material is located in the Sala Doni at Palazzo Giordani.

For information: Law Library

Professor Walker (1936-1995) was a lecturer in history of music at this university, and Dean of the faculty. During his research on 17th-century opera, and in particular Venetian musical theatre, he built up a significant collection of microfilm copies of handwritten 17th-century musical scores from the Contarini Collection (Marciana Library, Venice); the professor then donated his collection to the Literature Library.

For information: Literature and Philosophy Library