National Esperanto Library and Archive

The Esperanto National Library and Archive is the biggest Esperanto library in Italy; it is located in Massa, in northern Tuscany.

National Esperanto Library and Archive
Biblioteca Nazionale di Esperanto
44.03760456853333°N 10.138329695781541°E / 44.03760456853333; 10.138329695781541
Location	Massa, Italy
Established	1972
Collection
Size	9,049 item (2021), 9,730 item (2022), 9,704 volume
Other information
Website	http://www.archiviodistatomassa.beniculturali.it/index.php?it/186/biblioteca-nazionale-di-esperanto

Founded in 1972 as the official library of the Federazione esperantista italiana [it],^[1] it is now a public collection, hosted by the State Archive in Massa [it] and part of the REPROBI network of Italian libraries.^[2]

History

The concept of a national library that could host all the literary works in Esperanto was first imagined in the 1950s by professor Mario Dazzini (Pietrasanta, 1910 – Massa, 1985)^[3] and his sister, Catina Dazzini.

The first collection began in 1972, when Dazzini received a rare Esperanto book (the first grammar of Esperanto ever published in Italy, written by Daniele Marignoni [it]). The book was donated by the Italian linguist Bruno Migliorini and his brother Elio Migliorini [it], a geographer.^[4]

The core of the library consisted not only of books provided by the Migliorinis, but also of works donated by a lawyer Boscarino from Ragusa, Corrado Grazzini [it], Luigi Minnaja, and other Italian Esperantists.^[4]

The library was first hosted in the Malaspina Castle, on the hills surrounding Massa, and was then moved to the building of the State Archive in Massa.^[4]

In March 1994, the library and its archive were donated to the state and to the archive administration of the Italian Ministry of Culture.^[4]

In January 2007, the local Esperanto group in Massa began to catalogue the books and works hosted by the library.^[5] The work was helped and financed by the province of Massa-Carrara, together with the regional government of Tuscany and the Massa State Archive.^[6] The inauguration of the library's new location in the building of the State Archive was celebrated on 25 October 2008 in a public conference, called "Dall'Esperanto storico al multimediale" ("From historical to multimedial Esperanto"), hosted in the Sala della Resistenza of the Ducal Palace of Massa [it].^[7]

Collection

The library hosts books written in or related to Esperanto; the books mainly deal with linguistics, literature, theology and politics.^[6] Overall, the library hosts around 8,000 books.^[4] The majority of them were donated by the Dazzini family, and later by other Italian Esperantists.^[6]

The collection includes 176 magazines, not yet catalogued, as well as other documents such as travel diaries, correspondence, photographic images and music recordings.^[6] About half of the collection is Esperanto translations of works of prose and poetry.