The Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli of Milan

Abstract

The Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli of Milan is the most important centre of contemporary historical documentation and research in Italy, and one of the world's leading institutions concerned with the history of socialism and the international labour movement in Europe. The aim of this article is to provide a summary overview of the nature of the Fondazione, the history of its origin and its present position.' A member of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI), it will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its birth as the Biblioteca Giangiacomo Feltrinelli at the end of this century. Over 140,000 works in more than ten different languages are kept in its library, most of which are rare and valuable editions, many of them unique. There are also more than several hundred thousand issues of 10,000 periodicals, most of which were published by organizations and groups of the left all over the world. Its archive houses significant documentary files on figures of cultural and political prominence, both Italian and international, and microfilms or xeroxcopies of documents from files that are kept by other archives in Italy and abroad. A significant section of this huge documentary depository contains books about the Chartist movement, the French and Italian Enlightenment and Jacobinism,2 the Paris Commune,3 the European revolutionary movement