Not far from Dante Alighieri’s Tomb, overlooking Piazza San Francesco, is one of the most important cultural institution in Ravenna – the ALFREDO ORIANI LIBRARY.
The current location of the library was once occupied by Casa Rizzetti, famous for having housed the very well-known romantic poet Lord Byron in 1819.
On the occasion of the restoration works carried out in the nearby area dedicated to Dante (1936), the architect from Piacenza Giulio Ulisse Arata designed the building as we see it today, in a rationalist style.
Today, many high school and university students come here to study, as well as scholars and curious locals, who enjoy spending their days on books and notes.
Upon advanced booking, the library also organises guided tours to its collections and training courses of bibliographic research for schools.
Furthermore, it hosts conferences, meetings, debates on important themes, such as contemporary history; not to mention the temporary exhibitions organised in the rooms of the annexed cloister.
The heritage of Alfredo Oriani Library
Managed by the “Casa di Oriani” foundation, the library is dedicated to the memory of the Romagna writer Alfredo Oriani (1852-1909).
The institution is specialized in contemporary history and political, economic and social studies.
A great space is given to volumes on fascism and anti-fascism, on the history of Italian political parties, as well as on labour and the trade union movements, and, more in general, to the social and political thought.
It boasts a corpus of about 170,000 volumes, whose core counts 20,000 works dedicated to fascist publications.
It also preserves the archives of Olindo Guerrini, the one dedicated to the battle of resistance of Ravenna and the one dedicated to Mario Lapucci, further enriched with humorous works.
