The reopening of the library and the photo library is scheduled for 1st February 2013. The institute was threatened with closure because the previous library structure, located between Palazzo Zuccari and Palazzo Stroganoff, no longer complied with the fire safety standards and also had stability problems. Added to these problems there was a progressive lack of space due to the growing number of books in the library: this led to an international competition being called in 1994, won in 1995 by Juan Navarro Baldeweg. The client was the Max Planck Society, Germany and the collaboration of the City of Rome council.
Juan Navarro Baldeweg's project managed to combine the tradition and history of the place by opening a courtyard where there was once the garden of Palazzo Zuccari and covering it with a trapezium shaped skylight. The reading rooms and book deposits have been developed around this space. The new library is convincing not only because of its size, transparency and brightness but also for the seventy per cent increase in linear space thanks to the adoption of a compact shelving system. Two-thirds of the € 20 million required was provided by the German Bund and Länder and the remaining third came from private donations. The benefactors were Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung, Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, Gielen-Leyendecker-Stiftung, Kulturstiftung der Deutschen Bank AG, BASF SE, Dr. Arend Oetker, Deutsche Bank AG, Siemens Italia S.p.A. and Fördernde Mitglieder der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft.
The construction of a new building in the centre of Rome, subject to constraints for the protection of cultural heritage, represented a real challenge for the architects: the façades of the buildings could not be changed, nor was it possible to provide traditional foundations because of important archaeological finds. Italian archaeologists discovered the remains of a villa dating from about 60 BC belonging to General Lucius Licinius Lucullus.
The Bibliotheca Hertziana has created thanks to the foundation of the Jewish philanthropist Henriette Hertz, who bought Palazzo Zuccari in 1904, and donated it later in 1913 to the Kaiser Wilhelm Society established two years earlier and merged later into the Max Planck Society. This Institute is not only one of the oldest of the Max Planck Society but is the first with a humanistic direction. The “Hertziana” is one of the most renowned research institutions for the history of Italian art, particularly Roman art, and is a fundamental place of study for art historians from all over the world due to its excellent library, its rich photographic archive and the databases on seventeenth-century Roman painting and on the architectural design of the First Modern Age which represent research projects of greatest interest.
The research conducted by the Institute focuses on the art of Rome and central and southern Italy, as it was in these areas that the trends that determined and influenced all European art began. Roman art also owes this prominent role to the constant dialogue with Antiquity in all its aspects. Another central objective of the institute's research concerns the artistic exchange between Italy and Europe.
In March 2013, the Bibliotheca Hertziana celebrates the centenary of its foundation. At the same time Palazzo Barberini, in collaboration with the Bibliotheca Hertziana, is organizing an exhibition dedicated to the donation of Henriette Hertz Italian State. The works from the Hertz collected, now preserved in the National Gallery of Ancient Art, will be exhibited together for the first time.
Place.- Bibliotheca Hertziana. Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte. Via Gregoriana 28 – 00187 Rome, Italy.
