Acceso usuarios
Giovanni Cerutti
In Borgomanero, a small town 70 km away from Milan, in 1971 was opened a public library, due to the legacy of Achille Marazza, a politician and learned man born there in 1894, who served in Ferruccio Parri’s and several Alcide De Gasperi’s governments between 1945 and 1951, and, in particular, in 1945-46 as undersecretary at the Ministry of Public Education. During his service, Marazza met Virginia Carini Dainotti, a librarian and scholar, who studied the model of the Anglo-Saxon Public Library and affected Marazza’s choice to leave his house, his books, and his possessions to his hometown for the foundation of a public library, which establishment she was in charge of. The article discusses Carini Dainotti conception of public library, placed in the framework of the debate that from the thirties went through the Italian librarianship community, and reconstructs the long confrontation with the municipal administration that preceded the opening of the library.
