The Library

Banca d'Italia's Library was established in 1894. It is divided into an economics section, later named after Paolo Baffi, Governor from 1975 to 1979, containing specialist volumes on banking, finance and general economics, and a law section, named after Pietro De Vecchis, General Counsel from 1994 to 1997, containing specialist volumes on banking and financial law.

Both are open for consultation by the general public, particularly academics, economists, experts from other institutions and university students.

To access the catalogue and learn more about the Libraries' services, opening hours and publications click here.

Holdings

The Library owns more than 226,000 volumes, as well as approximately 10,000 titles of periodicals on paper and over 143,000 electronic resources (periodicals, e-book and databases).

The Paolo Baffi Economics Library holds approximately 1,800 works published before 1831; they include incunabula, sixteenth-century publications, and a number of works from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Some are rare and highly precious editions, such as the editio princeps of Luca Pacioli's Summa de arithmetica (1494) and the first edition of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776).

Of special note are the collections of books originally belonging to important figures, such as the economist Lionel Robbins, the intellectual Ernesto Rossi, the numismatist Pietro Oddo, the jurist Francesco Calasso, and Ambassador Sergio Fenoaltea, to which should be added the precious collection of antiquarian books. The Library also owns many reels of microfilm reproducing papers from the archives of the economists of the Cambridge school (Keynes, Kaldor, Kahn, Joan and Austin Robinson), the contents of the library of Piero Sraffa, and the important economics libraries Goldsmiths'-Kress Library and Seligman Collection.

The Pietro De Vecchis Law Library owns approximately 200 works published before 1831, with works from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Particularly rare and valuable items are the 1584 edition of Justinian's Corpus iuris civilis and the 1572 edition of Baldo degli Ubaldi's Commentaria. The modern collections incorporate donations from prominent jurists (Gustavo Bonelli, General Counsel from 1919 to 1926, and Sebastiano Battiati, head of the Legal Consulting Service from 1928 to 1936) and a wide collection of studies in honour and in memory of notable figures from the Italian legal world.

Sezione di approfondimento

Related Topics

  • Library services

    In this section you can consult the Library's full catalogue and resources, and ask for information and bibliographical assistance.

  • The Paolo Baffi Library: Collections and Studies

    The series aims at enhancing the profile of the Library and promote its work through the publication of bibliographies, catalogues of holdings, guides and studies.