Historical Archives of the Technology Library

The photographic collection of the Agriculture Library consists of 23 photographic albums received from the Library by the former Institute of Agricultural Economics. Most of the albums date back to the 1920s/1930s, and they are probably related to the figure of Arrigo Serpieri (1877-1960), professor of agrarian economics at the University of Florence, of which he was rector and whose book collection is kept at the Agriculture Library branch.

Some albums document reclamation works carried out in the Italian territory in the Fascist period (1922-1943), others testify to interventions of river regimentation, construction of aqueducts, inaugurations. Of particular interest is the album documenting the construction of the bridge on the lagoon for the reunification of Venice to the mainland (1931-1933)

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• Chartae description Agriculture Library Photographic Archive

The Lando Bartoli (Livorno 1914 - Florence 2002) collection, donated by his heirs in 2012, mainly collects graphic works related to the architect's professional activity (1098 plates related to 99 projects). It has been rearranged and is searchable.

• Chartae description Lando Bartoli

The Roberto Berardi collection (Milan 1937 - Florence 2008) was donated by his wife Margherita Ciacci in 2010. It consists of documentary materials and his library (about 500 volumes). The documentary consists of graphic designs, photo albums, notes, study materials, and teaching materials. The collection is awaiting reorganization; only a brief pre- cataloguing is present. At present, it is not searchable.

• Chartae description Roberto Berardi

The Luigi Bicocchi collection (Florence 1927 - Florence 2010) was donated by his wife, Daria Frezza, in 2015 and transferred to the Library's premises in 2019. It consists of 5726 drawings documenting Luigi Bicocchi's professional career. The chronological list of projects was compiled as part of a project coordinated by Professors Riccardo Butini, Alessandro Merlo, and Uliva Velo. The collection is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

Donated in 1978 by the wife of Alfredo D'Arbela, Marianna Casati D'Arbela, these archive collect about eighty volumes, and three boxes of various documents (1910-1960): journal issues, working documents, iconographic material, letters, documentation relating to the activity of D'Arbela as a member of the UIC (Union Internationale des Chemins-de-fer), the International Union of Railways.

• Chartae description Alfredo D'Arbela

The Luca De Silva (Florence 1947 - Florence 2018) collection gathers materials of various kinds (correspondence, flyers, posters, press reviews, photographs, etc.) produced on the occasion of events curated by the artist and librarian at the Library of Architecture (exhibition "The Imagined Garden" and cycle of meetings "Archi-té"), as well as a good part of the catalogues of his solo exhibitions. The collection is to be rearranged and is not searchable.

• Wikipedia page: Luca De Silva

Gian Franco Di Pietro (Lugo di Romagna 1935 - Florence 2022), professor at the University of Florence, was student and then assistant of Edoardo Detti. Di Pietro worked in particular on historical town centers, producing several urban plans (Lugo, Sansepolcro, Montevarchi, San Giovanni Valdarno, Arezzo, etc.).

As an urban planner, he has worked in municipal and regional planning offices (from Pietrasanta to Anghiari, to the Florentine metro area and the provinces of Siena and Arezzo) and designed several residential neighborhoods. He participated (with Edoardo Detti and Vittorio Gregotti) to the International Competition for the renovation of the University of Florence (1st place) and realized projects for the Sciences Campus of the University of Florence and multifunctional centre in Castello.

Di Pietro's archives, donated in 2013, consist of 205 folders including preparatory material relating to his professional activity and 65 tubes containing his drawings.

Pre-catalogued with a preliminary list of contents.

The Enrico Dante Fantappiè (Florence 1869 - Florence 1951) collection consists mainly of photographic material. It consists of 29 pieces that testify to Fantappiè's professional activity in and around Florence. The collection has been rearranged and is searchable. 

• Chartae description Dante Enrico Fantappiè

The Italo Gamberini (Florence 1907 - Florence 1990) collection was donated to the Library in 1992 by his daughter Donatella Gamberini and included almost exclusively materials related to the architect's teaching activities. The rest of the archive is kept at the State Archives in Florence. The collection is not rearranged and is not searchable.

• Chartae description Italo Gamberini

After several relocations, the Riccardo Gizdulich (Rijeka 1908 - Florence 1983) archive came to the Architecture branch of the Library of Technological Sciences in 2016, after the death of his son Franco. It consists of 95 envelopes, containing study materials, reports, tables, typescripts and photographs, related to his professional activity. The archive has not yet been reordered and is not available for consultation. A summary inventory is available.

• SIUSA description

Archives donated in 1990 and consisting of documentation relating to the professional activity and teaching of Giuseppe Giorgio Gori. In specifics there are manuscripts, newspaper clippings, artwork and illustrations, videotapes of the years between 1934 and 1968, including 140 projects collected in 165 boxes.

An inventory of the archives is available as a published book.

• Chartae description Giuseppe Giorgio Gori

 The Giovanni Klaus Koenig (Turin 1924 - Florence 1989) collection was donated by his wife, Maja Golling, to the Giovanni Klaus Koenig Center and, in part, transferred to the Architecture Library in 2019. The transferred documentation concerns project materials, while publications and teaching materials remained at the Center. Professor Giuseppina Carla Romby surveyed the drawings at the Koenig Memorial Conference in 2019. The collection is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

The László Bálint Kovács (Sashalom 1901 - Cervia 1967) collection was donated to the library in 2013 by the daughters of the Hungarian architect. The collection consists of more than 1,000 papers, mostly graphic works related to his professional activity. Some plates have been digitized and published in the volume "Italian architects and builders in the Ottoman empire and modern Turkey. Design across borders," edited by Paolo Girardelli and Ezio Godoli (2017). The collection has a consistency list, and a rough inventory is being prepared.

After the death of architect Franco Lombardi (Florence 1935 - 2007), his heirs handed over the materials of his professional activity to the Library of Architecture. The collection gathers exclusively graphic design material (about 50 rolls) and is awaiting reorganization. A brief list of projects is available. The collection is not searchable. 

• SIUSA description

 The Roberto Maestro collection (Sesto Fiorentino 1936-) gathers the documentation produced by the architect during his long activity as a designer and university lecturer. In 2018, the drawing section was donated to the Library of Architecture, while the documents are kept in his private home. The collection is being inventoried by Dr. Chiara Ricci and is not available for consultation.

• SIUSA description

 The collection was donated by Gian Luigi Maffei (Florence 1942 - 2019) to the Faculty of Architecture in Florence and consists of teaching materials (materials collected for the preparation of dissertations and publications) and about 300 books. The collection is not rearranged and is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

 The Gabriele Manfredi (Turin 1914 - 2016) collection was endowed to FAI and donated by them to the Library of Architecture in June 2016, thanks to the interest of INU - National Institute of Urban Planning and Professor Giuseppe De Luca. It consists of about 575 rolls of drawings and 88 boxes. The collection is to be rearranged and is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

Gabriele Morolli (1947-2013) was an architectural historian and professor at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Florence. His archive was donated in 2015 by his daughterEva. It consists of a library part (about 4,000 volumes), folders with preparatory material for publications, teaching materials, poems and slides. The collection is inventoried.

• Chartae description Gabriele Morolli

Pierluigi Nervi (1891-1979) engineer and inventor (he filed several patents in the field of reinforced concrete), starting from his first firm "Nervi and Bartoli Engineering Company" founded in 1932, in addition to the work on many traditional structures, Nervi dedicated himself to the study of futuristic buildings, which, over time, have established him to stardom in the international arena.

This archive, donated to the Technology Library in January 2010 by the architect Italo Domenico Castore, is composed of two sets of original plates: the first consists of 80 images of various size of the Cartiera Burgo in Mantua, the pool of the Naval Academy of Livorno and the hangars of Orvieto, Orbetello (GR) and Torre del Lago Puccini (LU) airports. The second part of the archives are made up of 4220 numbered photo negatives (rising to 6998 by counting the unnumbered duplicates), divided by format, most of them being film, others glass plates. The images are mostly black and white and give evidence of Nervi's projects covering a period from 1920 to 1980, including the municipal Sports Stadium in Florence, the first and second series of hangars, sports facilities for the 1960 Olympics Games in Rome, and the Paul VI Auditorium at the Vatican. There are also many lesser-known projects such as the multifunctional complex of the 'Good Hope Centre' in Cape Town in South Africa, the sports and the ice hockey halls for Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire (USA), the funeral chapel for the President of the Republic of the Ivory Coast S.E. Felix Houphouet Boigny in Yamoussoukro and the Italian Embassy in Brasilia.
The images are conserved in the Architecture Library and are available also in digital format.

These archives have been a source of information for the realization of a thesis as part of a PhD research project in Materials and Structures for Architecture by Claudia Sarri, titled "Compositional refinement and structural performance: the Sports Hall in Norfolk by Pier Luigi Nervi", XXIV cycle, years 2009/2011, National Central Library of Florence, location: TDR 130 01007, inventory: CFTD0018842 1 vol.

• Chartae description Pierluigi Nervi

 The Rolando Pagnini (Sambuca Pistoiese 1911 - Florence 1965) collection was donated to the Library of Architecture in 2015 by the Order of Architects Planners Landscapers and Conservators of the Province of Florence. It includes part of the archives of Studio Pagnini on Via Santa Caterina d'Alessandria in Florence. A brief list is being prepared. The collection is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

The archives were donated in 1972 and consist of 330 books, 55 magazines, 1,500 exhibition catalogs, catalogs of antiquarian booksellers, abstracts, pamphlets, manuscripts, notes, personal documents, architectural competitions, educational materials, students' essays, photographic material (plates and photographs), a collection of postcards and a collection of newspaper articles; the subjects are architecture and the decorative arts in Italy from 1903 to 1956.

Chartae description Roberto Papini

The collection was donated to the library in 1980 and consists of about 500 files relating to the professional activity of Marcello Piacentini containing documentation on competitions and architectural projects in which he participated (studies, sketches, final drawings of executed works, photographs, manuscripts of his publications and papers, magazine and newspaper abstracts) and a series of 2,500 small format items made up of notes, drawings and architectural studies, kept by Piacentini as a source of design ideas; the documents date to the years 1903-1960.

Chartae description Marcello Piacentini

The Giuseppe Poggi (Florence 1811 - Florence 1901) collection came to the library in 2013 after some trials and tribulations. It consists of 906 pieces (971 drawings) documenting construction work for private individuals. Entirely digitized, it can be viewed on the cultural Internet 

• Chartae description Giuseppe Poggi

Founded in 1960 by Piero Sanpaolesi at the same time as the Istituto del Restauro (Restoration Institute), the collection contains the photographic material collected and/or produced as part of the Institute's teaching and research activities. It also includes a historical core of negatives produced by Sanpaolesi during his time at the Superintendencies of Florence and Pisa. A description and digitization of the "A" group specimens, 228 card records containing b&w contact prints from negatives, mainly concerning Sanpaolesi's activities as superintendent before 1960, can be consulted in Chartae. 

• Chartae description

The Francesco Rodolico (Florence 1905 - 1988) collection was donated to the Library of Architecture by his widow, Cecilia Negri. It consists of about 1,600 negatives and 500 prints of photographs, divided by Rodolico himself into two sections: architectural images and nature and landscape images. The collection was reorganized and digitized in 2017 and can be accessed online. 

• Chartae description Francesco Rodolico

The archive of the Higher School of Architecture contains administrative and educational material from the Royal School of Architecture dating back to the 1930s, just before the establishement of the Faculty of Architecture (1936).

Pending reorganisation.

 The Studio Arcoprogetti collection (1981-2013) was donated to the Architecture Library in 2018. It consists of project and documentary materials (a total of 22 rolls, 15 between A1 folders and A3 files, 20 files). The archive awaits reorganization, but a list is present. The collection is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

 Upon the death of architect Francesco Trivisonno (Viterbo 1936 - Negrar 2010), the archive was donated by family members to his friend Gianfranco Di Pietro, and in 2015 it came to the Library of Architecture along with the deposit of the second part of the Di Pietro archive. It consists of 92 boxes of slides documenting Trivisonno's travels from 1965 to 1980 to various locations worldwide. A brief inventory was compiled in 2020 by Dr. Chiara Ricci and can be consulted at the Architecture Library. The collection is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

Collection donated between 1989 and 1990 and consisting of the correspondence and graphic design material of Luigi Vagnetti; the plates are grouped by project (120 projects) and divided by type (furniture, church, INAcasa, construction, urban, office, sports, religious, school, bridges). A printed catalogue is available for these archives.

• Chartae description Luigi Vagnetti

Archives donated to the library in 1984 and containing material related to the professional activity of Enzo Vannucci (1950-1982): 85 inserts, two cabinets of technical drawings, drawings, folders of blueprints, a few books on technical subjects.

• Chartae description Enzo Vannucci

 The Rosario Vernuccio (Gela 1925-) archive was transferred to the Library of Architecture in 2022, coming from Studio Vernuccio, where it had been stored after the end of professional activity in 2005. The material is divided into tubes containing drawings of projects and album notepads containing sketches collected by Vernuccio himself during his professional career. The collection is not inventoried and is not searchable.

• SIUSA description

The Officine Galileo photographic archive is linked to the book collection donated in 1972 to topography professor Mario Fondelli, director of the new library of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Florence, by the then president of Officine Galileo. The archive, kept until 2011 by physics professor Emilio Borchi, consists of 2197 units of different sizes, of which 1620 negatives and 577 positives. The most consistent unit is the 1595 silver salt gelatin glass plates (1300 of which have the historical 130x180 mm format), to which are added 374 photographs, 143 films, 79 teaching slides and 6 photomechanical plates. The oldest plates date back to the late 19th century, while the most recent films are from the 1980s. The archive documents the research and production in the optical, photogrammetric and geodetic sector of Officine Galileo, a historic Florentine company, and was used for the presentation and advertising of products as well as for the production of manuals for their use.

• Chartae description Officine Galileo photo archive

In 2018, part of the archives of the Italian company SAIVO/SEVES, makers of the famous glass brick, was donated to the library. The material consists of books, pamphlets, prints, photographs, and gray literature documenting some of the firm's work processes and model samples. The donation, along with the Officine Galileo collection, attests to the library's connection with local firms that developed internationally recognized technical skills and aims to highlight their industrial work and contributions to technical progress. The collection is currently being catalogued.