Historical Collection

Consultation and loan

To consult or borrow the documents of the Historical Collection you must reserve them because they must be specifically taken from the repositories.
Requests for consultation/loan of volumes from the Historical Collection should be sent through MOBI application by filling the Richiesta libri/riviste a deposito form:

• Ca' Foscari university members: use this form [ITA]
• non-university members: use this form [ITA]

If the documents are available, you can arrange for consultation/loan with the office.

Historical Collection

Small but valuable, partly catalogued in SBN-Indice Antico, it is a virtual collection, as almost all ancient editions are still located in their original position, within the monographic, periodical and special collections.

Among the most interesting documents are:

• 16th-century editions: among the 16th-century editions are an issue of Bartolo da Sassoferrato's Opera omnia, rare examples of Tagliente's treatises, several Trade Treatises, the Medical Treatises of Dioscorides and Vesalius, Giovio's Historiae, and the Ramusio printed by Giunti.
  
  
• 17th-century editions: notable among the 17th-century editions are some atlases by Blaeu and Voogt, splendid herbaria with hand-coloured engravings, rare treatises on arithmetic, accounting and trade, political pamphlets, literary, historical, medical and naturalistic works (some from the library of the naturalist Girolamo Zannichelli); from Coronelli to Cicero, from Corticelli to Ciacchi and Griminelli, from De imperio maris to Della Valle's Viaggi, from Montaigne to Sarpi to Giovan Battista Nani and Francesco Sansovino.

• 18th-century editions: 18th-century editions include a copy of the Constitution of the French Republic of 1795, the Lucca edition of 1758-76 of Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopedie; rare nautical, arithmetical, naturalistic and historical treatises; from Scipione Maffei to Michele Mercati, Vallisnieri, Pontedera and Spallanzani; from Antonio Genovesi to Giuseppe Palmieri, from Parini to Tentori, Cesarotti, Apostolo Zeno; from Marco Antonio Pellegrini to Cesare Beccaria, Gian Rinaldo Carli, Magalotti, Montesquieu and Muratori.
• Manuscripts: particularly noteworthy are two important manuscript nautical charts dating back to 1538 and 1612, in addition to a number of manuscripts from the 18th and 19th centuries, including Principi ovvero Massime regolatrici di commercio by Pier Giovanni Capello and the Satire by Dotti; also worth mentioning are some parchment fragments of ancient liturgical manuscripts returned from the restoration of the 16th-century edition of the Opera omnia by Bartolo da Sassoferrato.

You can find the list of special collections at Fondo storico page [ITA].

2024/2026 three-year plan for the enhancement of the Historical Fund 

The plan collects the programming of events for the valorization of Ca’ Foscari cultural heritage with the aim of making it accessible and usable to the whole community.

2024/2026 three-year plan for the enhancement of the Historical Fund [ITA]

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