by Jessica Rowe
FUA’s DIVA building sits on via Magliabechi, a street named for a lesser-known Florentine hero: Antonio Magliabechi, a man instrumental to the creation of the public library in Florence.
Antonio Magliabechi is a man who many people new to Florence may have never heard of but his influence can still be felt throughout the city today. He was instrumental in the creation of the first public library in Florence and dedicated his life to books and reading. He was a librarian, a scholar, and a bibliophile. Because of him, it is easier for people to access knowledge and learn to read, creating a better educated society for us all.
Born in 1633, Magliabechi apprenticed as a goldsmith and worked as such until he was forty. It wasn’t until Michele Ermini took an interest in him that he learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. In 1673, he became the librarian to Cosimo III de’Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Magliabechi was well-known for his love of books and his incredible ability to retain knowledge. He owned forty-thousand books and ten thousand manuscripts and had read all of them. His house overflowed with books, so much so that even the porch was covered with them. Scholars and authors from every nation corresponded with him and, while he never wrote himself, he was more than happy to help out writers. As a result, he had many books dedicated to him.
Magliabechi was also known for being incredibly eccentric. He often ignored the realities of life in order to continue reading. This led to such things as him not drawing his salary, wearing clothes until they fell off of him, and not undressing before going to bed. He only left Florence twice in his life and the furthest he went was to Prato, where he accompanied Cardinal Henry Norris, the Vatican librarian, to see a manuscript.
When he died in 1714, he left his books to be used as a public library and, in 1861, his collection was combined with that of Victor Emanuel II, the King of Italy, to form the core collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze. Today, this library sits on the corner of via Magliabechi and via Tripoli, which is a continuation of Corso dei Tintori where FUA’s main campus is located.