Researching the Origin of Perugia's Public Library (1582/1623) before and after Material Evidence in Incunabula

The Biblioteca Augusta of Perugia is one of the earliest public libraries in Italy. Its core foundation is made up of the collection of Prospero Podiani, whose knowledge and interest in the book market led him to create one of the largest collections of sixteenth-century Italy, including some 300 incunabula. Panzanelli’s doctoral research approached documentary evidence pertaining to the collection in order to reconstruct the lively cultural context of the time and space it belonged to. Having transferred the incunabula data into the database Material Evidence in Incunabula, we can now offer a richer and more complex representation of the development and use of the collection, of the books’ survival, loss, and mobility, and of the methodology of the investigation involved.