Biblioteca Malatestiana

It was commissioned by Malatesta Novello, lord of Cesena, in the mid-fifteenth century. The building work, directed by the architect Matteo Nuti from Fano, was completed in 1454 and since then the hall has remained as you see it today: three aisles divided by white columns, 58 wooden desks (29 on each side) and precious codices still bound with chains. It was conceived as a library for the community, not for the lord: this is why it is considered Europe's first civic library.

It is the only example of a humanist monastic library to have survived perfectly preserved, in its building, furnishings and book collection. In 2005 UNESCO inscribed it in the Memory of the World Register, the first recognition of this kind in Italy.

Light enters through windows on both sides, designed so that readers could study without candles. On the desks and capitals you find the Malatesta coats of arms: the elephant, the four-petalled rose, the chessboard. Among the codices are illuminated manuscripts of classical, sacred and scientific texts, some copied specially in Novello's scriptorium.

The Malatestiana Antica can only be visited with a library guide, in small groups: you view the hall from the entrance, without going in among the desks. The rest of the complex, in the former convent of San Francesco, is a modern, living library, with study rooms, the Biblioteca Piana of the Cesena popes and the municipal art gallery. Book well ahead, especially at weekends.