Biblioteca Fardelliana

Explore further

The former Church of San Giacomo Maggiore

The church's medieval origins are traditionally connected with the Knights of Santiago, a military religious order associated with the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

Its later occupants, the Compagnia dei Bianchi, were members of a charitable confraternity established in 1555. The organisation took its name from the white clothing worn by its members and maintained a prominent place in Trapani's religious and civic life.

The confraternity occupied the former church from 1624. Following its dissolution in 1826, the building was made available for the establishment of a public library.

Restoration work in 2007 revealed sections of the medieval church's masonry and flooring, preserving visible evidence of the earlier structure.

Giovanni Biagio Amico and the Baroque alterations

The eighteenth-century alterations to the former Church of San Giacomo Maggiore were undertaken by Giovanni Biagio Amico (1684–1754), a Trapani-born architect and priest who played an important role in shaping the Baroque architecture of western Sicily.

Largely self-taught, Amico combined his ecclesiastical career with architectural commissions across the region. His work in Trapani included the façade of the Church of the Purgatorio and alterations to the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. He also worked on religious buildings elsewhere in Sicily, including the Church of San Pietro in Erice.

At San Giacomo Maggiore, Amico remodelled the façade and designed the monumental staircase in local stone, adapting the former medieval church to the needs of the Compagnia dei Bianchi.

Amico also published L’Architetto pratico, an architectural treatise issued in two volumes in 1726 and 1750, reflecting his interest in both architectural design and construction techniques.

The sculptures described by Di Ferro

In his 1825 guide to Trapani, Giuseppe Maria Di Ferro described several Renaissance marble sculptures still associated with the former church.

He paid particular attention to a statue of San Giacomo Maggiore dressed as a pilgrim, carved in 1522 by the Palermo sculptor Antonello Gagini. Di Ferro praised the work's elegant proportions, restrained drapery and expressive character, describing Gagini as the Michelangelo della Sicilia.

He also recorded three statues by Antonello's son Vincenzo Gagini, identifying their subjects as San Filippo, San Giacomo Minore and San Vito. His transcription of their inscriptions records the sculptor's name and the date 1553.

These sculptures were subsequently removed from the building. Costantino's history identifies the statue of San Giacomo Maggiore among the works transferred to the Museo Pepoli, together with other sculptures from the former church.

Di Ferro's account is particularly valuable because it describes the artistic furnishings shortly before the building was converted into a library. His identification of one of Vincenzo Gagini's figures as San Filippo differs from the identification given in Costantino's later study.

General Fardella and the foundation of the library

General Giovanni Battista Fardella played a central role in establishing the library as a public institution. He donated books and manuscripts from his personal collection, contributed towards furnishings and provided paintings for an accompanying picture gallery.

The library opened on 21 April 1830 as the Biblioteca Comunale del Capovalle di Trapani, but soon adopted the name Fardelliana in recognition of its founder.

In March 1831, a royal decree united it with an earlier provincial library, established in 1825 but never opened to the public.

The picture gallery formed part of the institution's original cultural purpose. In 1908, its paintings were transferred to the Museo Pepoli, leaving the Fardelliana primarily devoted to its library and archival collections.

The Arabic-inscribed columns

Two marble columns bearing Arabic inscriptions stand in the library's reading room. Their inscriptions have been dated to the late eleventh century, during the period of Norman rule in Sicily.

The columns incorporate older marble shafts reused from the Roman period. According to the historical account documented by Costantino, they were discovered during work at the Church of San Rocco in 1574 and subsequently transferred to the Fardelliana in 1830.

A third related column was later transferred to the Museo Pepoli.

The inscriptions have attracted scholarly attention, notably from the nineteenth-century Arabist Michele Amari and later researchers. They provide a material connection with Trapani's medieval Islamic and Norman history.

The library's collections

The Fardelliana's holdings extend well beyond its original nineteenth-century collection. They include manuscripts, illuminated books, incunabula, sixteenth-century printed editions, historical newspapers and specialised collections of music, engravings and natural-history material.

Among its manuscripts is a work associated with the Jewish mystic Abraham Abulafia, while its early printed books include editions produced in major Italian printing centres.

The library also preserves the historical Archive of the Senate of Trapani, comprising 785 archival units. These records document the city's administration and its relationships with royal and viceregal authorities over several centuries.

Other holdings include musical manuscripts associated with the composer Antonio Scontrino, engravings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi and a botanical herbarium assembled between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Together, these collections make the Fardelliana an important resource for research into Trapani's political, religious, artistic and cultural history.