National Central Library
of Florence

Piazza dei Cavalleggeri 1
Open: Monday-Friday 8,15-19,00;
Saturday 8,15-13,30
Closed: Sundays and public holidays
tel. +39 055 24919201/257
www.bncf.firenze.sbn.it

×History
Façade of the new National Central Library seen from Piazza Cavalleggeri, MiBAC- Biblioteca nazionale centrale Firenze, Album Regia Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, foto 5.

Florence in the 1930s produced not only modern buildings open to international influence but also buildings that reflected a taste for the past. Architect Cesare Bazzani won a nationwide call for tender for the Central National Library issued in 1902, but the foundation stone was not laid until 1911.

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The completed building was opened, together with the railway station, by the king and by National Education Minister Cesare Maria De Vecchi on 30 October 1935. It combines a neo-Renaissance façade (the portico echoes the nearby Pazzi Chapel) with a rationalist and functionalist interior (including a reading room and monumental staircases). The twin towers were nicknamed "architect Bazzani's ass's ears" at the time because they obstructed the view of the south side of the Basilica of Santa Croce from Piazzale Michelangelo.

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