More than 1,800 entries (documents, notices, ordinances, posters), have been listed.
Poster exhibition at Palazzo Mauri extended until Friday 2 October
A catalogue of 1809 entries collecting part of the thousands of posters, notices and documents of Spoleto between 1895 and 1915, a commented list of a precious paper and typographical testimony. The list, which is kept in the Carducci Library in Palazzo Mauri, has been transcribed into a computer document: an operation that forms part of the arrangement and enhancement of the Library’s historical heritage carried out during the lockdown phase.
A selection of those posters was exhibited to the public for the first time last Saturday at the Palazzo Mauri City Library on the occasion of the European Heritage Days. The exhibition has been extended until Friday 2 October following the library opening times: Monday from 15.15 to 18.15, Tuesday and Wednesday from 9.45 to 12.45, Thursday from 15.15 to 18.15, Friday from 9.45 to 12.45.
“Given the success of the exhibition,” explained Councillor for Culture Ada Urbani, “we decided to extend its deadline. By reading these posters and documents it is possible to take a real journey back in time to Spoleto at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and to reconstruct, through characters and small and big events, the great history and everyday life of Spoleto many years ago. Even the recovery of the catalogue and its transcription allow us to get to know a treasure of the library that tells us about a past that is still alive in our city. In this sense, the exhibition is only a first step in the process of enhancing the extensive, precious material kept in Palazzo Mauri.”
The work of cataloguing and annotating public posters was for years one of the commitments of Rinaldo Gherghi, a teacher of literature, director and “true father of the Carducci library” in Spoleto. It is thanks to him and his son Arnaldo that we have a detailed list, complete with observations and comments, of the public posters and notices of the city between the 19th and 20th centuries. Thanks to cross-referencing and immediate textual research into the contents of the thousands of posters, it is possible to retrace the civil, social and cultural history of Spoleto, from the notices and ordinances of the City Council to the meetings and gatherings of citizens and associations, from the documents of political elections to cultural events, from news about interventions and public works to entertainment occasions and advertisements of the time.
