Dispersed collections of scientific books. The case of the private library of Federico Cesi (1585-1630)

The paper exhibits the analysis of the private library of Federico Cesi (1585-1630), an important scientist in the XVIIth century, in particular involved in Botany, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei in 1603, to which also Galileo Galilei was enrolled in 1611. The library, containing about 3.000 items, which served also as library of the Accademia dei Lincei until 1630, has been dispersed. After Cesi's death, the library was sold to Cassiano Dal Pozzo almost completely, and his heirs in 1714 sold it to Pope Clemente XI Albani. Then, the collection was partly confiscated by French revolutionaries in 1798, and partly disappeared during the wreck of the ship which was conveying a large number of books, bought by the Imperial Library of Berlin, in the mid-nineteenth century. The bibliographic reconstruction of the library, containing works of Medicine, Alchemy, Astronomy, Natural Sciences, and Secreta, was based on the transcription of two manuscript inventories owned by the Accademia dei Lincei, containing rough descriptions of works and authors, and also using documents of Cesi Family's archive, kept in the Rome Archivio di Stato. The complete reconstruction in Maria Teresa Biagetti. La biblioteca di Federico Cesi. Roma, Bulzoni Editore, 2008.