A splendid example of baroque religious architecture, the Federiciana Library is one of the most emblematic historical places of the city of Fano, custodian of a book heritage of immense value and still today one of the most important cultural conservation and dissemination centers in the Marche region.
The library is located in the rooms that once constituted the House of Priests
of the Oratory of S. Filippo Neri, immediately behind the church of San Pietro in Valle, in the historic center of the city. So named because it was founded in 1681 by Domenico Federici as his personal library in the period in which he became part of the congregation of the Philippian Fathers, who resided in the oratory of San Pietro in Valle. After Federici's death in 1720, the collection it was left, according to his wishes, to the fathers of the oratory, who kept the library open to the public one hour a day and enriched it with various volumes. In 1861, with the annexation of the Marche region to the Kingdom of Italy, the religious corporations were abolished: the library was reclaimed by the Municipality which obtained legal ownership. Over the years the library was enriched with numerous volumes: the surviving collections of other congregations, private donations, bequests of manuscript funds, etc. This immense heritage was jealously safeguarded and protected, especially during the years of the Second World War; the building itself was also renovated several times with the aim of increasingly becoming an important center for cultural promotion and dissemination. The only room that has remained unchanged over the years is the splendid Sala dei Globi in which it is still possible to admire today the wooden bookcases carved by the Bolognese Maestro Francesco. A worthy completion of the furnishings are the two precious globes that gave the room its name: two globes, one celestial and one terrestrial, made as a pair in 1688 by the Venetian cosmographer Vincenzo Coronelli, famous precisely for these creations. The globes present in the Federiciana Library belong to one of the eleven typologies theorized by Coronelli, that of "3 and a half feet", the largest printed up to that time. Both consist of an empty wooden sphere inside covered with a layer of papier-mâché on which the black and white prints were glued and, subsequently, colored decorations and legends were added, to improve detail and usability.
The Federiciana was born with around 12,000 French-bound books, constituting one of the most important Italian libraries of those times. The collection was "universal", including books covering every area of knowledge, from philosophy to gastronomy, medicine, botany, physics, geography and many other areas.
Today the library houses over 250,000 volumes, a newspaper library and a cinema section with Professor Fiorangelo Pucci's collection, an almost complete review of cinematographic culture, from its origins to the present day. There is also a Manuscripts Section, and some special collections: Fanese historical collection, Collection of Soncini editions, Castellani collection (numismatics and glyptics), Bracci Pagani collection (agriculture), Tom Storer collection (books in English).
Confirming the city and regional importance of the library, the Ministry of Culture recently awarded the Municipality of Fano a substantial loan for the recovery and expansion of the historic city library which will be curated by the famous architect Mario Cucinella.
