The Vito Carvini Municipal Library (Italian: Biblioteca comunale "Vito Carvini") is the public library of the town of Erice, Sicily. The library preserves manuscripts, rare volumes, and works relating to the history of the city, and is named in honour of the 17th-century archpriest and local historian Vito Carvini.
The council established a public library in 1867, using books transferred from Erice’s monastery and convent libraries—San Francesco, del Carmine, San Domenico, and the Capuchins—made available after the suppression of religious orders following the unification of Italy in 1866. The new civic collection was set up in rooms of the municipal headquarters on Piazza della Loggia, to which the council had moved around 1861.[1][2]
The library remained within the Palazzo Municipale but changed quarters when, in 1874–75, the complex was enlarged by incorporating the adjoining Palazzo dei Marchesi Pilati. The works—raising a storey on the Pilati wing and a general remodelling that produced the present Renaissance-style façade with imitation rusticated masonry (falsi bugnati)—shifted the library into the newly annexed Pilati section of the building.[3][4]
The Palazzo dei Marchesi Pilati had been the residence of the Pilati (or Pilato) family, a local noble lineage recorded in Erice from at least the early 15th century; local histories note Antonino Pilati as a juror in 1405.[5] By the modern period the family held the title of marchese; examples include Marchese Giuseppe Pilati in Valderice land-tax records and an 1842 imprint by Antonino Pilati Curatolo, who styles himself "marchese della gran torre" (Marquess of the Great Tower).[6][7]
The library’s first director was Giuseppe Vito Castronovo (1868–1893), a historian and bibliographer who compiled the first catalogue of the civic collection and organised the initial holdings drawn from the suppressed religious houses.[1] The institution is named in honour of archpriest Vito Carvini of the Chiesa Matrice, Erice (Mother Church), noted for his manuscript history Erice antica moderna sacra e profana and for his role in the town’s cultural and religious life in the late seventeenth century; Carvini’s and other Ericine manuscripts are preserved in the civic library’s historical holdings.[8][2]
Collections
The library’s holdings include rare and antiquarian volumes, manuscripts, and civic and ecclesiastical records relating to Erice. Among the manuscripts are works by the principal Ericine historians and chroniclers—Antonio Cordici, Vito Carvini, Teodori, Guarnotti, Bonaventura Provenzani, and Giuseppe Vito Castronovo—as well as the Ugo Antonio Amico and Giuseppe Pagoto fonds; the historical municipal archive preserves records of the Corti Foranea, Capitaniale, Giuratoria and the Decurionato, and the photographic archive documents key moments in local life.[8]
Among its most important items is Vito Carvini’s multi-volume Erice antica moderna sacra e profana, which records local families, privileges, topography, and antiquities; other frequently cited manuscripts include Antonio Cordici’s Storia di questa Regia Madrice and Bonaventura Provenzani’s Storia Ericina, both noted in recent conservation work.[2]
The library’s historical collections are actively maintained and used for research; institutional summaries note a total collection of over 47,000 items and provide access details.[8]
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