Library of Folk Arts and Traditions
The core collections of the Library of Folk Arts and Traditions date to the times of ethnologist Lamberto Loria and the founding in Borgo San Jacopo, Florence, of the Museum of Italian Ethnography, in 1906. Loria, in undertaking to collect the objects of Italian folk traditions, also determined to constitute a specialized library “of all sorts of publications concerning the artifacts of characteristic objects, primitive industries, customs and traditions, superstitions and prejudices, tales, traditions, poems and proverbs, dialects and any other Italian Folk manifestation.”
In 1911, in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of the Kingdom of Italy, the state organized the International Exhibition in Rome, and with it the Exhibition of Italian Ethnography. In association with this event, both the ethnographic objects and library holdings of the Museum of Italian Ethnography were brought to Rome and substantially increased. With World War I and its aftermath the status of the library became unsettled, until reopening in Tivoli in 1937. In 1956 the collections were finally brought to their current location in the Palace of Folk Arts and Traditions at EUR. The library is unique in Italy and preserves a very important heritage in the fields of ethno-anthropology, folklore and folk literature. Apart from more than 30,000 books and periodicals, the library maintains the Folk Literature I Collection (currently 3,700 booklets), the Folk Literature II Collection (7,400 leaflets and ephemera) the Miscellanies (3,800 pamphlets) and the Emeroteca, consisting of relevant newspaper clippings from the late 1800s to the present.
The Library of Folk Arts and Traditions, currently managed in collaboration with Central Institute for Intangible Heritage (ICPI) and located at Piazza Guglielmo Marconi 8, is open by telephone reservation at +39 06 5926148 or by email to ic-pi@cultura.gov.it, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Pending standardization of data, the available bibliographic information can be accessed via the Polo degli Istituti Culturali di Roma, https://cloud.sbn.it/opac2/IEI/ricercaSemplice.
