Feltrinelli Foundation

Named for its late founder, the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation was established in 1949 to collect, preserve and make available to scholars and interested members of the public diverse materials documenting the history of ideas, in particular those related to the development of the international labor and socialist movements. It had two prior incarnations: first as a library and then as an institute. The Foundation has since grown to become one of Europe’s foremost centers for scholarly research on social, political and economic thought and history from the 18th century to the present. Its library and archival holdings, which cover a broad disciplinary and linguistic spectrum, comprise some 180,000 rare and modern monographs, extensive collections of newspapers and periodicals, both historical and current, and over a million manuscripts and rare primary source materials. The Foundation organizes conferences, seminars, workshops and exhibitions exploring both historical themes and issues pertaining to contemporary society, and supports the work of scholars by promoting individual and collective research projects. It publishes books, original research and catalogues of its library and archival holdings and facilitates public access to this rich heritage through telephone and e-mail reference services, publication of printed and online finding aids, and participation in Italy’s national computerized database. A long-term digitization project is underway to make available online reproductions of thousands of the most significant materials in the Foundation’s possession.