The article reconstructs the history of the escheat of religious libraries, suppressed after unification of Italy by RD n. 3036 of July, the 7th 1866, with a focus on the district of Cagliari. The law provided that the books of each monastery were to be moved to existing or newly created public libraries, after the favourable sentence of Minister of Justice. The escheat was anyway under condition of an annual funding by the local administrations. In Sardinia, the royal decree follows a previous Sabaudian law, thus the effect of both were merged in the post-unitarian period. In the Cagliari district, the local administrations involved in the escheat were Bosa (where a local library already existed), Cuglieri, Iglesias and Oristano, where the religious books were the seed of the first municipal library. Other books were transfered to the University Library of Cagliari, which received the suppressed libraries of the town (and some more, refused by other administrations). The escheat history is quite complex due to administrative problems during the transfer of books and financial straits during the life of the libraries. Some religious libaries were so partially or totally lost, also due to the delays of the operations: the last transferred library was that one of the Franciscan monastery of San Gavino Monreale in 1889.
La devoluzione delle biblioteche claustrali soppresse in età post-unitaria. Il caso di Cagliari (1866-1889)
GRANATA, GIOVANNA
2009-01-01
Abstract
The article reconstructs the history of the escheat of religious libraries, suppressed after unification of Italy by RD n. 3036 of July, the 7th 1866, with a focus on the district of Cagliari. The law provided that the books of each monastery were to be moved to existing or newly created public libraries, after the favourable sentence of Minister of Justice. The escheat was anyway under condition of an annual funding by the local administrations. In Sardinia, the royal decree follows a previous Sabaudian law, thus the effect of both were merged in the post-unitarian period. In the Cagliari district, the local administrations involved in the escheat were Bosa (where a local library already existed), Cuglieri, Iglesias and Oristano, where the religious books were the seed of the first municipal library. Other books were transfered to the University Library of Cagliari, which received the suppressed libraries of the town (and some more, refused by other administrations). The escheat history is quite complex due to administrative problems during the transfer of books and financial straits during the life of the libraries. Some religious libaries were so partially or totally lost, also due to the delays of the operations: the last transferred library was that one of the Franciscan monastery of San Gavino Monreale in 1889.
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