Indroducing the Digital Cicognara Library

The Digital Cicognara Library is an international initiative to recreate in digital form the remarkable private book collection of Count Leopoldo Cicognara (1767–1834). Though assembled in the Romantic era, Cicognara’s collection of some five thousand early imprints stands as an important scholarly resource for the literature of art and archaeology. Cicognara’s famous, two-volume inventory of his library, the Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità, published in 1821 and often reprinted, remains an essential tool for scholars and bibliophiles.

The full Digital Cicognara Library is being built by contributing partners. The site presents the full text of the Catalogo integrated with digital images and full text of every title in the corpus, including black-and-white facsimiles of the original volumes in the Vatican, one or more high-resolution, color facsimiles of unique copies from partner libraries, and thorough bibliographic information. Thanks to generous support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and partner institutions, the Digital Cicognara Library will be an open-access resource.