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EXTENDED OPENING HOURS OF THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS LIBRARY \u2013 September 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n We kindly inform our users that, starting from 1st September 2025, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Library will open to the public one hour earlier, from 9:00 a.m. instead of 10:00 a.m. Please be advised that the Library of this Ministry has activated the following subscriptions to digital journals\u2014based in part on requests received from various ministerial departments\u2014which can be consulted at the computers in the Reading Room on Floor 0 (Olimpico side):<\/p>\n Africa e Affari, Asian Survey, Euro intelligence, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Il Diritto dell\u2019Unione Europea, International Affairs, International Security Journal, Le Grand Continent, Le Monde Diplomatique, Limes, Nigrizia, Pacific Affairs, Rivista Africa, South China Morning Post, The Economist, The Middle East Journal.<\/strong><\/p>\n Details of opening hours and access procedures can be found here: https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/it\/uapsds\/archivio-storico-e-biblioteca\/biblioteca-uap\/accesso\/<\/a><\/p>\n LAUNCH OF THE INTERLIBRARY LOAN SERVICE\u2013 September 2024<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Reading Room of the Library will be closed to the public from 1 August up to and including\u00a02\u00a0September<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mission<\/strong><\/p>\n The Library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation manages the book heritage, as well as a newspaper library of historical and current material. It serves both the internal and external public.<\/p>\n In all likelihood, the original core<\/strong> of the Library is due to the initiative of Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour<\/strong>, who took a personal interest in the arrangement of a collection of approximately 9,000 volumes, which included historical, legal and literary works belonging to the Royal Cabinet of the Kings of Sardinia.<\/p>\n Later the initial holdings were expanded with the addition of important bequests<\/strong> of historical and political works; collections of treaties and conventions from all the countries of the world; works of geography, statistics and international law, together with the very rich collection of diplomatic documents, making it the most important specialist library in the Kingdom of Italy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n With the transfer of the capital to Rome, the Library followed the same fate as the Ministry and was later housed in the Palazzo della Consulta, Palazzo Chigi<\/em> and in the premises of Rome\u2019s Governorate, where it remained until 1958, when the Foreign Ministry was definitively moved to the Palazzo della Farnesina<\/em>.<\/p>\n Holdings<\/strong><\/p>\n The heritage available for online consultation is visible at the following address<\/a>. Further bibliographic searches can be carried out at the other research services listed on the dedicated page<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n Through subsequent acquisitions and deposits, the book heritage has progressively been enriched until reaching almost 200,000 current volumes, to which the 1,500 periodicals including Italian and foreign magazines from different periods must be added. \u2022 \u201cFondo Antico\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Consisting of a core of about 3,000 works<\/strong> published between 1500 and 1830 that are currently being identified and catalogued, it is the Library’s most valuable section. A conspicuous part of these volumes consists of precious and rare books published in the 16th<\/sup> century (the so-called cinquecentine<\/em>) on various subjects, but there are also many volumes published in the 17th and 18th centuries concerning, inter alia<\/em>, international conventions and travel literature. \u2022 \u201cFondo Armao\u201d<\/strong><\/a> \u2022 \u201cFondo Asiatico\u201d<\/strong><\/a> \u2022 \u201cFondo Eritrea\u201d<\/a><\/strong> \u2022 Fondo Miscellaneo Guerra civile Spagnola<\/a> \u2022 Diplomatic documents<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the special features of the Library are the collections of foreign and Italian diplomatic documents. Particularly valuable among these are the so-called libri di colore, i.e. <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0collections of diplomatic documents published to document the foreign policy of a particular country and which fulfilled, in essence, the function of today’s public diplomacy<\/em>. Among others, the collections of the Italian Green Books<\/strong> (1858 -1923), the English Blue Books <\/strong>(1815-1882) and the French Yellow Books<\/strong> (1850-1939) are preserved.<\/p>\n\n
\nThe Reading Room will therefore be open to the public from Monday to Thursday, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\nAs of 1 September 2024, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Library will join the Interlibrary Loan service provided within the National Library System network (ILL-SBN).
\nLoan requests may be submitted by partner libraries via the SBN OPAC system at the following link:\u00a0https:\/\/opac.sbn.it\/web\/opacsbn<\/a>\u00a0or by sending an email to uap.ILL\/DD@esteri.it<\/a>.
\nAny requests for assistance should be submitted to the following email address: biblioteca.mae@esteri.it<\/a>.
\nUsers are invited to read the Interlibrary Loan Regulations, available at https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/it\/uapsds\/archivio-storico-e-biblioteca\/biblioteca-uap\/accesso\/<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"biblioteca3\"](\"https:\/\/www.esteri.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/biblioteca3-224x300.jpg\")
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\nThe Library also has some important book collections which, due to their systematic nature and the high historical and artistic value of the volumes, are independently catalogued. Their consultation is subject to particular constraints, in order to preserve their integrity.<\/p>\n
\nThe first editions of Dei delitti e delle pene<\/em> by Cesare Beccaria<\/strong> and the Codex juris gentium et diplomaticus<\/em> by Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz<\/strong> also deserve special mention.<\/p>\n
\nDonated to the Library byAmbassador Ermanno Armao (1887-1976)<\/strong>, it consists of 252 volumes published between 1544 and 1950. It includes valuable historical and geographical works from the 17th and 18th centuries, numerous works on history and politics concerning Europe and the Mediterranean countries, and an important corpus <\/em>of volumes devoted to the history of Venice. The main works include those linked to the name of the great Venetian geographer and cosmographer Vincenzo Maria Coronelli. These include the Atlante Veneto, <\/em>the Isolario, <\/em>the Corso geografico<\/em> and the volumes of the Biblioteca universale sacro-profana<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nDonated byAmbassador Gerardo Zampaglione (1917-1996)<\/strong>, it comprises about 1,000 volumes, mainly published in the period between 1850 and 1990, concerning India, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Arab world. In particular, there are around 600 volumes on Indian culture, history and literature.<\/p>\n
\nIt is a book heritage from the Italian library in Asmara<\/strong> and includes material of exceptional historical-documentary value, in particular newspapers and daily newspapers, published under the various administrations that succeeded one another in Eritrea, as well as numerous official publications (1892-1941) of the colonial government.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>This is a Miscellaneous Collection composed of approximately 120 publications, relating to the Spanish Civil War. These publications are of various types, including books, pamphlets, periodicals (some of them humorous) and leaflets.
\n<\/span>Coming from the Cabinet Collection 1923-1943, particularly from the papers of the Spanish Office, probably because they were sent to the Ministry by the Italian Propaganda Offices in Spain, they are an important testimony of the ideological propaganda of both the right- and left-wing parties in the years between the two World Wars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n