Contacts: biblioteca@conservatoriocimarosa.org

The Conservatory’s Library stores book holdings concerning the fields of music and musicology. All students and teachers of the Conservatory have free access to its resources. The library consists of two large reading rooms and a storeroom and is an invaluable support for the institute’s educational and research activities. Consultation, reference, book lending and international book lending services are delivered, and users are encouraged to use online music-bibliographic resources. Since 2011 the library is part of the National Library Service (SBN), the network of Italian libraries promoted by the Ministry of Culture. To this intent, Internet and wi-fi are provided.

Around 17,000 books are stored in the library, including scores, musicological texts, encyclopaedias, music periodicals, opera librettos, records, and CDs. The book holdings were partly purchased and partly donated. Among the major donations are:

The Fiorentino’s Donation  comprises a collection of around 2,000 books on musical subjects, printed and manuscript music, vinyl records, CDs, audio cassettes, video cassettes, periodicals, letters, photographs, and documents that belonged to Sergio Fiorentino, an internationally renowned concert pianist from Naples, who died in 1998.

Procida’s Donation includes the book holdings that belonged to Giuseppina Procida De Rogatis, a violinist from Naples, a student of Angelo Ferni at the Conservatory of San Pietro a Majella, one of the players in the San Carlo Theatre orchestra and the Quartetto Napoletano, active in the first half of the 20th century.

Italia Carloni’s Donation, a musicophile and a fine music connoisseur, the wife of musicologist Francesco Canessa. The collection consists of an impressive corpus of magnetic tapes containing operas recorded live or radio recordings in Italian and foreign theatres, opera librettos, theatre programmes, and books on music and theatre.

Campese’s Donation, a Neapolitan pianist and conductor, consists of opera adaptations, Italian and Neapolitan songs and melodies, a variety of orchestral music and chamber music compositions.

Castella’s Donation includes an interesting collection of pieces of easy-listening music for mandolin and guitar dating back in the early decades of the 20th century, as well as a collection of pieces of music, songs and dances for small orchestra and café chantant.