The Angelica Library possesses, within its ancient library holdings, an important collection of opera librettos, valuable evidence of the musical culture of some local Italian realities between the 18th and 19th centuries.

The librettos represent the most conspicuous and interesting part of the Miscellanea Santangelo, a collection from the ancient Neapolitan Santangelo family (Nicola Santangelo, Busso 1754 – Naples 1851), and containing not only librettos but also plays of various genres.
It is not possible to establish with certainty the date of acquisition, but it can be assumed that the entire collection arrived in Angelica during the years of the change of management from the Augustinians to the Italian state, around the second half of the 1800s.

The librettos, once acquired, were bound together with the comedies, tragedies and even translations of French dramas, which together constitute the drama section.

The 954 opera librettos according to format and broadly by subject were collected in volumes and finally placed in the so-called “Friars’ Room.”
The collection consists of 1987 specimens. The works marked with no. 1931 in no. 1984, constitute a separate section preserved in the Rare Miscellany.

The texts date from the first half of the 1700s to the first half of the 1800s: the oldest libretto Lo cecato fauzo is from 1719, the most modern is Cleopatra from 1879.
Within the theater section, a separate physiognomy acquires the group of about 60 comedies, farces and one-acts written for the Neapolitan mask of Pulcinella; this is an important documentary value of texts closely related to peculiar aspects of southern culture.

The oldest play that appears in the fund is an anonymous text from 1803, The Loving Battle.
Most of the plays were printed and performed in Naples and, as such, constitute a significant record of the Neapolitan era and culture between the 18th and 19th centuries.

The more than 400 volumes of the Santangelo Fund, which represent the rest of the miscellany excluded from the theater section, collectively represent an overview of both Neapolitan scientific and literary erudition in the 18th century.
For the most part, these are academic reports and memoirs, excerpts from the proceedings of the Pontanian Academy, the Society of History and Antiquity, or the Herculaneum Academy, in the form of pamphlets that rarely exceed 50 pages.

We find, in short, evidence of many aspects of the civic and literary life of Neapolitan society at the time: writings on jurisprudence in more than 40 volumes, political pamphlets and pamphlets on mathematical, physical and chemical sciences, 56 volumes of poetry and about 50 among works on archaeology and fine arts, as well as pamphlets on public economy and manufactures, medicine and surgery and many others on various subjects.
A particularly interesting section is the archaeology and fine arts collection.
These are the texts that express the spirit of the most representative exponents of the world of Neapolitan culture consisting of scholars and scholars of which the Santangelos, as owners of a much admired museum, were an active and interested part.

Online consultation of the Opera Booklets of the Angelica Library.
From the website of the Department of Cultural Heritage – DBC Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna – CORAGO Project http://corago.unibo.it/.
To access the descriptive sheets and reproductions simply select the Angelica Library from the search mask of Libretti http://corago.unibo.it/libretti.