Peter Leopold I of Tuscany (1747 – 1792)
Ferdinand III of Tuscany (1769 – 1824)
Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1797 – 1870)

The musical archive of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, Grand Dukes of Tuscany, was collected and kept  at the Florentine court of Palazzo Pitti until 1862, when it was transferred to the Regio Istituto Musicale, now the Conservatorio L. Cherubini. The Grand Duke’s collection, a personal and family library, reflected the personal taste of the rulers and served the musical needs of the court, which organised religious events, theatrical performances, and balls. The Fondo Pitti, an almost perfect mirror of European music of the 18th and early 19th centuries, is divided into three sections: Teatro (theatre), Chiesa (church), and Strumentali (instrumental). Some of the music in the collection is decorated with watercolours attributed to the Habsburg engraver Martin Engelbrecht, which were mounted on optical boxes to create theatrical dioramas for performances. 

The collection is fully catalogued and can be identified by the call numbers F.P.T (theater), F.P.Ch (church), and F.P.S (instrumental)

Temporary electronic catalogue – Fondo Pitti

Works from the Fondo Pitti in the Catalogue of the National Library Service of Italy

Extent: 6143 works, about 350 linear metres

The Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence (1784 – )

The collection named Accademia is in fact the music archive of the II Class of Music and Declamation, opened in 1811 at the Accademia di Belle Arti of Florence. It became part of the library after the conversion of this class into the Regio Istituto Musicale, now the Conservatorio L. Cherubini. The collection includes the autograph music of academics, professors and composers who won the prizes awarded by the Accademia in the early 19th century, as well as manuscript copies of operas, cantatas and canons for didactic use. It was gradually enriched by donations from illustrious Florentine families, such as the Rinuccini, and from the city’s musical institutions. 

The collection is fully catalogued. The works can be identified by the Accademia stamp, the initial collection has call numbers starting with D.

Fondo Accademia in OPAC of The National Central Library of Florence 

See the complete description on the portal of the Centro Documentazione Musicale della Toscana

Abramo Basevi (1818 – 1885)

A member of the Istituto Musicale of the Accademia di Belle Arti, he was one of the founders of the Conservatorio L. Cherubini as it is known today, a composer and music critic, a central figure in the Florentine music scene between 1840 and 1880. Dedicated to the dissemination of German instrumental and romantic music, he initiated, in partnership with the publisher Guidi, the publication of the economical editions of music, accessible to the general public, all of which are included in the collection. Together with Ferdinando Giorgetti, he founded the Società del Quartetto, which brought to Italy the then unknown music of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Spohr, Meyerbeer, Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner, organising “Mattinate Beethoveniane” and the first competition dedicated to instrumental music. 

The Basevi collection, transferred to the Regio Istituto Musicale in 1888, contains several autograph manuscripts (by Alexander Agricola, Isaac Heinrich), early printed works, and rare works of music theory and musical analysis of the 16th and 17th centuries. The collection reflects Basevi’s journalistic activity, with the complete edition of the newspapers L’Armonia (1856-1859) and Il Boccherini, and his correspondence with composers and scholars. 

The collection is fully catalogued. Temporary electronic catalogue – Fondo Basevi 

Fondo Basevi in OPAC of The National Central Library of Florence

Extent: 3200 works, about 100 linear metres

Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata (1807 – 1881) 

Lawyer, music critic, composer, he was an honorary member of the Accademia di Belle Arti, and served as a city councillor from 1895. Soon after the nomination he started the process of reorganisation of the city music schools and  in 1862 founded the Regio Istituto musicale di Firenze, which is now known as Conservatorio L. Cherubini. Casamorata was appointed as its first President and remained in office until his death.

The Conservatorio’s library holds most of the manuscripts of his compositions for theatre and ballet, his instrumental music, his didactic  works, and his complete musical archive. Casamorata’s significant collection of musical instruments is part of the Museum of Musical Instruments. 

The collection is fully catalogued, the works can be identified by the Dono Casamorata stamp and the significant part of the collection has call numbers starting with D and E.

Extent: around 2300 works, 10 linear metres.

Felice Boghen (1869 – 1945) 

Composer, conductor, and pianist for the “Trio Fiorentino” and the “Sestetto Fiorentino”, which he founded. From 1910, he held the chair of the Armonia complementare and the Lettura della partitura courses at the Regio Istituto Musicale di Firenze, now known as the Conservatorio L. Cherubini. He edited the collection of Ancient Italian Masters for the Ricordi, worked on the music of Bach, Clementi, Frescobaldi, Liszt, Marcello, Pasquini, and D. Scarlatti. An academic and a member of musicological societies, in 1939 he had to renounce all public appointments due to the Italian racial laws.

The library holds both Felice Boghen’s musical works and didactic exercises, as well as his revisions of past masters. The Boghen collection includes vocal and operatic music (Mancinelli, Migot, Taray, Berisso, Bagnoli Fr., Doire R., Zanon, Pizzetti, Saracini, Frazzi V., Gadda G. C.) and instrumental music (Pizzetti, Krammer, Ferrari D., Malipiero C. F., Tcherepnine A., Delmas M., Tagella G., Benisso A., Ketten H., Setaccioli R., Ricci-Signorini A.).

The collection is entirely catalogued, and can be identified on site by the Dono Boghen stamp. Most of the collection’s items have the call numbers F III, F VI or FVII

Extent: around 1100 works

Arnaldo Bonaventura (1862 – 1952) 

Musician, musicologist, librarian (1912), teacher of history and aesthetics, deputy director and then interim director (1923-1925) of the Regio Istituto Musicale, known now as the Conservatorio L. Cherubini. Bonaventura had a law degree, but devoted himself exclusively to literary and musicological studies, writing several volumes on the history of music, monographs on Verdi, Rossini, Puccini, Paganini, Boccherini and other composers, transcriptions of ancient music, several school manuals on music education, collaborating on the musical sections of various encyclopaedias and compiling catalogues of musical works.

The Bonaventura collection includes numerous publications and printed pamphlets, periodicals, his manuscripts, notes and the musical part of his correspondence.

The collection is entirely catalogued.

Extent: around 1450 works

Luigi Parigi (1883 – 1955) 

A Florentine music critic, journalist and intellectual, he was a student of Ildebrando Pizzetti and, together with other music critics and writers, helped to revive interest in contemporary music in Florence. One of the first to study the relationship between music and the visual arts, he published a series of articles on musical iconography in “Rassegna Musicale” (1928). He also wrote for La Nazione, Nuova Musica and was the founder of La Critica Musicale (1918-1923).

The Parigi collection, which contains the complete archive of his articles and essays, was transferred to the library in 1955 and was kept in a display cabinet (vetrina in Italian) donated together with the documents, for this reason the collection took the call numbers Vetrina P I and Vetrina P II.

The collection is entirely catalogued. Materials of the Fondo Parigi the catalogue of the National Library of Florence 

Consistency: 935 works, about 30 linear metres

Edoardo Cavallini (1911 – 1968) 

A Florentine violinist and composer, he devoted himself to the research in the microtonal composition from an early age, writing numerous studies on microtonal technique and holding the first Italian chair of the Armonia pluricromatica at the Accademia di Santa Cecilia (1940-1945). For a time he taught music history in Czechoslovakia and studied composition with Jaroslav Řídký and Alois Hába, later working in Innsbruck.

The Cavallini collection came to the Library in two gifts in 1978 and 2017. It comprises his personal archive, including his photographic collection and correspondence, and his musical archive, including autograph manuscripts, theoretical treatises on the history, aesthetics and philosophy of music with handwritten annotations.

The inventory of the personal archive, edited by Miriam Viapiana 

The library collection is not yet catalogued

Pietro Grossi (1917 – 2002)

Composer, a cellist for the Maggio Musicale, cello teacher at the Conservatorio L. Cherubini. In the 1960s he became interested in the production of artificial sound and founded the musical phonology studio “S2FM” in Florence, one of the first in the world; in 1965 he founded the chair of electronic music at the Conservatorio and in 1984 a course in computer science for music. He was a researcher at the CNUCE of the CNR (now ISTI) in Pisa, where he built the TAU2 synthesis system. He collaborated and experimented with electronic music with his students, Florentine composers such as Albert Mayr, Lelio Camilleri and Francesco Giomi. In 1997, with the advent of the Internet, he carried out the first Italian experiment in collective online multimedia work.

The archival fonds of Pietro Grossi (1960 – 2001) is kept at the MARTLab in Villa Favard and consist of his music archive on reels, records and tape recorders, scores, lecture notes, correspondence. 

The collection is unordered, but the compositions have been completely digitised.

Full description of the fund on the portal of the Italian National Archives System

Sergio Sablich (1951 – 2005) –

musicologist, music historian, music critic, student at the Conservatorio L. Cherubini in composition, choral music and choral conducting, and since 1989 professor of music history and music aesthetics, he was artistic director of the Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI and the Orchestra della Toscana. He has published studies on Ferruccio Busoni and was director of the Music Study Centre dedicated to him, as well as monographs and articles on Wolfgang Sawallisch, Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Goffredo Petrassi, Franz Schubert and Luigi Dallapiccola. He conceived and organised, together with Giuseppe Sinopoli, the Festival of Sacred Music ‘Anima Mundi’ in Pisa.

The Sablich collection was transferred to the library in 2005 and contains musical literature in Italian and German.

The collection is entirely catalogued. The Fondo Sablich in  the catalogue of the National Library of Florence 

Extent: about 1100 works

Giuseppe Cantone (1922 – 2010) 

Was a scholar and musicophile, a law graduate, he was a banker by profession, but cultivated his interest in music all his life and became a member of the association Amici della musica in Catania, where he lived until retirement.

His collection, donated to the library in 2011 by his daughters, contains musical literature and theatre programmes, including those of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (seasons 1967-2001), the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (seasons 1983-1990), the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari (seasons 1998-2005) and the Teatro alla Scala (seasons 1983-2001).

The collection is currently being catalogued. The music archive and the literary part in the catalogue of the National Library of Florence

Extent: over 1,500 works, about 30 linear metres.

Eriberto Scarlino (1865-1962)

Piano teacher (from 1937) at the Conservatorio L. Cherubini, pianist, organist and composer, student of Mezio Agostini, Gino Tagliapietra and Giangiuseppe Bernardi in Venice.  He has worked with Giulio Bignami, Attilio Crepax, Giovacchino Maglioni and Pietro Grossi. He taught in Parma, Venice and was director of the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Alexandria in the 1930s.

Giovanni Cicconi (1938-2016)

Piano teacher and director of the Conservatorio L. Cherubini from 1996-2003, pianist, concert pianist. During his directorship, important collaborative projects were initiated, including with the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Estate Fiesolana and the University of Florence. He was the son-in-law of Eriberto Scarlino, from whom, together with his wife, he inherited the personal library and musical archive, which he enriched and organised over the years.

The Scarlino-Cicconi Collection was donated to the Library in 2016.

The collection is currently being catalogued. Fondo Scarlino Ciccolini in the Catalogue of the National Library of Florence 

The archival fonds is not catalogued

Giuliana Zaccagnini (1933 – 2015) 

Professor of piano at the Conservatorio L. Cherubini, concert pianist. After her retirement, she passionately dedicated herself to the library.

The collection contains music literature, printed music and archival materials. The collection was donated to the Library by her heirs in 2016.

The library collection is partially catalogued. The works of the Fondo Zaccagnini in the catalogue of the National Library  

Extent: about 300 works

The archival fonds is not yet arranged.

Giancarlo Cardini (1940 – 2022) 

Pianist and composer, student and then professor of piano at the Conservatorio L. Cherubini Conservatory, arranger, author of symphonic, chamber and stage music, audiovisual works, one of the founders of the Florentine association GAMO for the dissemination of contemporary music. He has worked with John Cage, Morton Feldman, Sylvano Bussotti and Luca Lombardi.

The collection  is a recent donation and it includes scores of contemporary music with annotations by the authors.

The collection is not yet catalogued. 

Extent: around 70 linear metres.