Philosophers’ Private Libraries (1600–1800)

Giovanna Granata

2023-01-01

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Abstract

The paper presents the project Philosophical libraries. Private libraries of philosophers in the modern and contemporay age started in 2006 as the result of a collaboration between the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and the University of Cagliari. The project is based on the assumption that the study of the libraries of philosophers can help to better understand the cultural interests and attitudes of the owners as well as the sources they used in developing their thought. In addition, a global analysis of the data allows to outline the literary canons which held sway over a certain period of time or across a certain area and to follow their transformations, providing valuable material for the history of ideas and of culture in general. With this purpose a database was created (http://picus.unica.it) to collect together all the remaining evidence which might help us to reconstruct the nature and the history of libraries belonging to philosophers and other thinkers. The database, still under development, includes evidence on 300 lerned man (almost 1/3 of them covering the period 1665-1830) and gathers different types of documents ranging from archival documents, as notarial deeds, to book lists drawn up by owners for their own use, sale catalogues (mainly for the sales by auction) and catalogues of special collections in institutional libraries. Thus, it acts as a kind of hub for all the sources which might be relevant in order to study private libraries and can be exploited in a variety of ways by researchers working, not only in the field of the history of ideas, but also in the field of the history of libraries and of the book trade. Some general remarks on this point are proposed based on a survey of the collected material.