The Seminary Library is entered through the wooden door that gives access to the former Episcopal Seminary of the Diocese of Casale Monferrato. The real entrance to the library is located on the left side of the wide corridor connecting the rooms. On the other side, the visitor is greeted by an oval antechamber with handsome grisaille decoration, which is conducive to reading. It not only houses the catalogues, old inventory books and computer terminal, but is now also used for consultation. The old hall, where generations of seminarists studied and broadened their knowledge of theology, the humanities and the sciences, is the throbbing heart of the Seminary Library. While both the architecture and the paintings are very pleasing to the eye, visitors are also enchanted by the antique wooden furnishings, constituted by tall boiserie shelving on two levels with a walkway, which house the over 30,000 books of the antique collection. The apse is home to two precious 18th-century globes that represent the sky and the earth, made by Father Pietro da Vinchio, and several 19th-century objects from the seminary’s science classrooms: a geodoscope, a Galilean monocular, an electrostatic current generator, and a gramophone. The library is currently used for exhibitions, conventions and conferences regarding the activities of the diocese. Special display cabinets here house a permanent exhibition of several incunabula, manuscripts and rare editions, which are rotated with other rare books. The incunabula include Arbor vitae crucifixae by Ubertino da Casale (1485) and Il comment del Landino alla Divina Commedia (1491). Among the precious illuminated manuscripts, we find the 14th-century Breviario Antico and Le Orazioni di Cicerone by Giovanni da Cremona (1436). Last but not least, the 16th-century Chirugia Magna by Paracelsus (1573), Avenzoar Ibn Zufr containing all the medicine of Averroes (1549), and La Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (1657). Activities promoted by the Diocesan Library include the “Armaria et Charta” events in collaboration with the Diocesan archive, in which library materials with particular relevance to the chosen theme are displayed and illustrated.

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