International Museum and Library of Music

Museum

The museum and library's holdings and predecessors date back to the 1700s from the collections of Padre Martini (see below) and the holdings of the music school (founded as the Liceo Musicale in 1804 renamed as the Regio Conservatorio in 1942). The collections were reorganized as the Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale in 1959, founded to hold the city's collection of musical objects. It was renamed Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica in 2004 when the museum's current site, the Palazzo Sanguinetti, opened to the public. The palace contains frescoes which were first completed between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and provide one of the finest examples of Neoclassical decoration.

The museum exhibits highlight the rich musical heritage of Bologna. The museum is unusual among music museums in not being exclusively (or nearly exclusively) focused on music instruments, but also including other objects relating to music such as the paintings of musicians and collections of their manuscripts and prints. Until recently, much of this collection was warehoused. The palace provides an environment for display and conservation of these items.

The institute is divided between two sites. An ample selection of volumes, paintings, and musical instruments are displayed in the museum halls in Strada Maggiore 34 (Palazzo Sanguinetti), while the bibliographic material is accessible in Piazza Rossini 2 (the ex-Convent of San Giacomo) in rooms attached to the G.B. Martini Conservatory of Music. …

Library

The collection inherited from Padre Martini constitutes one of the most prestigious collections of music repertory printed between the 16th and 18th centuries because of its incunabula, valuable manuscripts, opera libretti, and for the unique collection of autographs and letters, which are the result of the correspondence Martini painstakingly kept with eminent people, scholars, and musicians of the time. Saved from the Napoleonic confiscations due to the intervention of Stanislao Mattei, Martini's disciple and successor, the valuable bibliographic patrimony was donated to the Liceo musicale di Bologna in 1816. The Liceo had been founded in 1804 at the ex-convent of the Agostinians in the church of San Giacomo Maggiore. The library grew considerably throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, thanks to the amount of materials produced from the didactic activity of the Liceo; famous students of the Liceo included Rossini, Donizetti, Respighi and directors Mancinelli, Martucci, and Busoni.

The library also grew because of the valuable items and rare volumes that were acquired by Gaetano Gaspari, who was appointed as librarian in 1855.

Gaspari directed the library for many years with a unique zeal and knowledge. After many years of hard work and constant effort, he was able to excellently organize and card-catalogue all the library material (also from this period came the posthumous publication, the "Library Catalogue of the Liceo Musicale di Bologna", which bears his name and is now also available online).

In 1942, when the Liceo musicale was transformed into a state institution—Regio Conservatorio di Musica—the Comune di Bologna chose to maintain ownership of Padre Martini's bibliographic patrimony and the attached picture gallery.

The Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale was founded in 1959 in order to conserve and make the most of the bibliographic patrimony and portrait gallery. Among the books in the collection not usually on display is the manuscript Bologna Q15, one of the most important collections of music of the early fifteenth century, including the sacred works of Johannes Ciconia and many of the earliest sacred works of Guillaume Du Fay. …