Libraries, Second floor, National Academy of San Luca

The National Academy of San Luca hosts two ancient and prestigious art libraries, the Academic Library and the Roman Municipal Library Sarti. The Academic Library was born and developed with the Academy itself, so much so that already in the Statutes of 1607 the commitment of the academic body is explicitly required for the increase of the book collection. The Roman Sarti Library was inaugurated on 21 April 1881 by the architect Antonio Sarti da Budrio, President of the Academy from 1860 to 1863, who wished to offer his citizens his own collection of books, making it the property of the Municipality of Rome and entrusting perpetual protection at the same Academy of San Luca.

In the historic headquarters of Palazzo Carpegna the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca houses two ancient and prestigious art libraries, the Academic Library and the municipal library Romana Sarti, different in history and administrative nature but today substantially connected in a single service that offers scholars and students a heritage of over 50,000 volumes, including works from the past and current events in the field of painting, sculpture and architecture, accompanied by periodic publications relating to the Fine Arts. In particular, the ancient bibliographic funds allow specialist research on printed sources, period originals and manuscripts, a natural complement to the documentation kept in the Academy’s Historical Archive. With regard to the modern, critical studies on the “sister” arts (painting, sculpture, architecture) in Italy and abroad prevail, and the intellectual and artistic publicity of today’s academics, in line with the nature of the institute,

The Academic Libraryit was born and developed with the Academy itself, so much so that already in the Statutes of 1607, with the approval of Monsignor Fedeli vicereggente, the commitment of the academic body to increase the collection of books is expressly requested: “Et per ornare et arrecchire the book of the Academy, each one who will become an academic must give a book, either printed or hand-written, dealing with the aforementioned subjects and studies of the profession et de historie et de altro “. As a result of these donations, a documentary heritage of great artistic and scientific value has been established over time, which still grows through donations and purchases.

Among the valuable historical documents stands out the complete series of engravings by GB Piranesi personally donated by the artist in 1761 when he was nominated as a member of the Academy.Of the symmetry of human bodiesby A. Dürer, in a precious folio edition of 1591 printed in Venice. Today the Academic Library is open to modernity and the most recent artistic expressions while maintaining the connection with the tradition of study of the Academy for classical arts. His patrimony continues to benefit from the legacies of academics who have also paid tribute to their personal and valuable library collections in recent times, testimony to the public and private commitment carried out throughout the career. This is the case of the fund titled in Palma Bucarelli, an art historian and prominent figure in the years after the Second World War in Italy, and also of the funds of the architects and professors Giancarlo De Carlo, Giorgio Ciucci, Carlo Aymonino, and the artist and writer Angelo Zanelli.

The Roman Sarti Libraryit was inaugurated on April 21, 1881 by the will of the architect Antonio Sarti da Budrio, President of the Academy from 1860 to 1863, who wanted to offer citizens his own collection of books, making it the patrimony of the Municipality of Rome and entrusting its perpetual protection to the Academy of San Luca. Thus was established a first public library in Rome, the recent capital of Italy, prefiguring a free opening that brilliantly anticipated a concept of “public” defined and affirmed only towards the end of the twentieth century. The collection is the faithful mirror of Sarti’s varied and refined interests, and clearly reflects the artist’s and scholar’s soul moved by the researcher’s passion. The entire original collection, around 10,000 volumes, is denoted by the value and refinement of printed texts and manuscripts, with a nucleus of ancient works from the 16th to the 19th century concerning the study of art, architecture, archeology, classical antiquities, the lives of illustrious men, the stories of cities and towns of Italy.

Sarti himself left the library with a valuable album of engravings in his own hand that depict the interiors of the major Roman basilicas, in front of the relative preparatory drawings. Of great importance is also a body of about 200 titles of works from the collection of his master, Raffaele Stern, which Sarti recovered at his expense from an auction in 1824, all “extremely rare” already at the time, as he wanted to define them. Also striking are the four albums of ink and watercolor sketches by the painter Carlo Labruzzi, active between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which in the images recreate a journey of other times along the ancient Via Appia, from the gates of Rome to Benevento, among Roman ruins and glimpses of rural views. Among the special funds, that of the archaeologist Giuseppe Lugli, which includes texts on the subject with insights into Roman topography and the handwritten notes of his private archive. Today the Roman Sarti, within the Capitoline Administration, is part of the Rome Libraries Institution which coordinates and manages the municipal circuit of public reading libraries.

Academic Gallery
Part of the academic collections are exhibited in the Gallery – located on the third and top floor of Palazzo Carpegna. Other works are located in the academic rooms, in the secretariat offices, in the conference room, located on the main floor, as well as in the Academic Library, in the Sarti Library and in the Historical Archive which are located on the second floor. The rest of the collections are kept in deposits located on the ground floor or along the helical ramp.

In October 2010 the Gallery, renovated according to a museum exhibition project developed by Angela Cipriani, Marisa Dalai Emiliani, Pia Vivarelli (who disappeared in 2008) as Superintendents of the Gallery and the Academic Collections, reopened to the public in almost all of its rooms.

The new layout was designed, in collaboration with the academic architect Francesco Cellini, following the most up-to-date criteria, that is, using the same exhibition order to immediately and effectively return the idea of the Academy itself over the centuries.

The restoration of the works of painting and sculpture, made necessary by the long past period of storage of the works, entrusted to the care of Fabio Porzio, was joined by the now usual research laboratory on restoration methods, always directed by Fabio Porzio, particularly interesting. for the variety of materials and therefore the richness of the relative problems. We also proceeded to reread the archival documents, in order to reconstruct the historical and current consistency of the academic collections.

National Academy of San Luca
The Accademia Nazionale di San Luca is an association of artists from Rome, officially founded in 1593 by Federico Zuccari, who was also its first director (Prince), with the assumption of raising the work of the artists above simple craftsmanship.

The National Academy of Saint Luca has its origin in the institution established between the late 1500s and early 1600s when an ancient confraternity of painters associated with the Università delle Arti della Pittura held meetings at the little church of San Luca all’Esquilino in Rome (the church has since been demolished). In 1577 a papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII at the urging of the painter Girolamo Muziano instituted the Accademia delle Arti della Pittura, della Scultura e del Disegno (the “Academy of the Arts of Painting, of Sculpture and of Drawing”), but it would be 1593 before the Academy was symbolically “founded” by Federico Zuccari with the formal approval of the original statutes of the Accademia de i Pittori e Scultori di Roma (the “Academy of the Painters and Sculptors of Rome” – but not architects, who were first welcomed into the ranks of the Academy only in 1634, when Pietro da Cortona was “Prince” of the institution).

In 1934, following the demolition of the Academy’s historical seat next to the church of Santi Luca e Martina – to make way for the new Via dell’Impero running through the Roman Forum – the Academy moved to its current headquarters in Palazzo Carpegna. From its foundation onwards, the Academy’s activities had always included teaching, in the form of conferences, symposia and courses in painting, sculpture and architecture, but in 1874 this aspect of the Academy’s work was delegated to the Reale Istituto di Belle Arti (now known as the Accademia di Belle Arti), while the Academy itself was charged with organising cultural activities intended to enrich and promote the fine arts.

Today such work continues via the publication of books regarding the Academy and its history, the organisation of exhibitions at the Academy’s headquarters, the safeguarding and conservation of its physical patrimony and the loaning of works from the Academy’s collections (drawings, paintings and sculptures) for display in national and international exhibitions. The Academy, also, focuses on young artists and scholars in particular through the distribution of scholarships and prizes.