Dalla Libia a Firenze. Il fondo archivistico e librario di Giacomo Caputo. Un’esperienza di public engagement per la Bright Night 2024 dell’Università degli studi di Firenze

The paper proposes some reflections on the communication to non-specialist audiences of author'sfonds. In this specific case, within the initiatives organised by the University of Florence on the occa-sion of the European Researchers' Night (Bright Night 2024), a public engagementactivity was car-ried out in order to enhance the documentary and bibliographic heritage of the archaeologist Giaco-mo Caputo (1901-1992). The event turned into an opportunity to reflect and materialise issues andneeds related to the particular typology of the collection. The fond – held at the Humanities Libraryof the University of Florence and now housed at the ‘Paolo Graziosi’ Florentine Museum and Instituteof Prehistory - consists of an archive and library at the centre of two distinct but closely connectedresearch projects.In developing an adequate and shared communication strategy for the collections in question, the mul-tidisciplinary angle of the collection was highlighted and addressed: archival science and librarianshipintertwine with classical archaeology, restoration, and the history of Italian colonialism in Africa, inter-secting with moments of private life and offering a portrait of the archaeologist in his workshop. Theexperience therefore becomes a case study, highlighting some of the actual difficulties of realisationand proposing possible solutions aiming at communicating such a remarkable heritage even to thenon-specialist public, in the light of the university third mission