The Braidense National Library starts again from Umberto Eco, who left a treasure of rare books in Brera, and from a little girl named Nicole. But also from an alarm launched by director James Bradburne, because the staff is in constant decline, from 145 employees and 32 librarians in 2016 to 32 employees and 2 librarians today, with even worse prospects for next year and the danger of suspension of services. . “Italian libraries are in deep crisis – said Bradburne -. Ignored during the “fat” years of growing tourism, they are now reduced to the bone, at the risk of closing down ».
Waiting for unlikely positive developments, Braidense is not discouraged anyway: she knows that “even in the crisis, a library could offer the community a rich program of in-depth study, learning and discoveries”. With an eye to the younger generations. And here Nicole enters the scene, a little girl who at the age of three discovered the Pinacoteca thanks to reading “All the fault of the Giraffe”, a children’s book written by Bradburne starting from one of Brera’s masterpieces, “The preaching of San Marco in Alexandria in Egypt ”by Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, and who later invented a wooden house in the library in which to invite other little readers. The experience generated a second story, “Nicole and the house of books”, which will be presented in the Maria Teresa Room on November 19th.
The most awaited event on the calendar presented by Bradburne is set for April, with the inauguration of Umberto Eco’s study, next to the Sala Manzoni, where the 1200 old books left in Brera by the writer will be kept in the same order in which they they found in the house in Piazza Castello. From 4 May to 7 July, the review “The idea of the library” is scheduled, in collaboration with the Umberto Eco Center in Bologna and with the Warburg Institute in London.
Other events, among the many announced: on November 25th the “Canceled May 5th” is presented, a work by Emilio Isgrò donated to Braidense at the end of the celebrations for the Napoleonic year (on display until January 9th). On January 27 and until April 2 it is the turn of “The art of war”, an exhibition of books from the library on military architecture and war history. From 22 September until 19 November 2022 Saul Steinberg, the protagonist of a great exhibition at the Triennale in these days, will instead return to Milan with the exhibition of the works donated to Brera by the Foundation that bears his name.
Finally, there remains the possibility of exploring all the riches of the Library and Art Gallery on the BreraPlus.org platform, which held the flag of the Milanese institution high during the pandemic and which has grown extraordinarily.
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