About the Collection

The Guido Mazzoni Pamphlet Collection forms part of the personal library of Guido Mazzoni (1852-1943), professor of Dante studies and Italian literature at the University of Florence, Italian Senator, and bibliophile. The Pamphlet Collection spans the years 1572 through 1946, with the bulk of the material dating from the mid-eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries. There are approximately 49,648 pieces in this collection, many of which are rare and difficult to locate in the United States and even in Italy. Formats represented include: pamphlets, libretti, clippings, newspapers, scores, manuscript items, small cards, periodicals, small volumes, small and large broadsides, and one photo album. There is an abundance of illustrated publications, fine engravings, woodcuts, and items with maps enclosed. About 80 percent of the materials are in the Italian language, though other languages are represented, most notably Latin, French, English, German, Greek, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese, and Eastern European languages. The other component of Mazzoni's library, chiefly bound volumes, was transferred to the Perkins Library general holdings.

The importance of the Mazzoni Pamphlet Collection primarily lies in its contribution to the fields of European and Italian studies. It is a broad but selective bibliography - put into material form, as it were - of nineteenth-century European culture and its transition to the twentieth century. Indeed, the collection may be studied as a cultural construct created over the lifetime of a collector who realized the importance of the historical context to any study of human society, and the critical necessity of preserving it for posterity. In the vastness of the Pamphlets Collection one can study practically any aspect of Italian culture. The largest and most developed subject areas are Dante studies, Italian poetry and other literature, and Italian history and politics, but smaller subject groupings also contain valuable resources for researchers.  Students and faculty interested in art history, drama, music, utopian thought, Fascist literature, and European popular culture can all find material in Mazzoni's collection.

Guido Mazzoni built up his library in several ways. He purchased many items from rare book dealers and other book sellers in Italy, particularly in Padua, Florence, and Bologna. His colleagues and former students sent him thousands of offprints, extracts, and small volumes of their work, most of them inscribed to Mazzoni. He accumulated materials from his work in the Italian Senate, most notably in areas of education and the humanities. He also acquired either by purchase or by inheritance entire libraries of academic colleagues, some of whom became his relatives by marriage. Some of these names include Giuseppe Chiarini, his father-in-law, and Raffaello Fornaciari.

The literary, political and scientific individuals represented by the Pamphlet Collection are too numerous to mention in this introduction, but more detailed information can be found under the section for each subject area. Suffice it to say that virtually every important poet and dramatist of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is well-represented, men and women, and, perhaps more importantly, many minor authors whose works are now difficult to find. In addition, notable political and scientific individuals of the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries are encountered in the collection.

Additional items - primarily monographs - from the library of Guido Mazzoni can be located by author or title through the Duke Libraries Online Catalog.

For information about reproduction and use see Copyright and Use.