13 Facts About Antonio Magliabechi

Antonio di Marco Magliabechi was an Italian librarian, scholar and bibliophile.

Antonio Magliabechi was born at Florence, the son of a burgher named Marco Magliabechi, and Ginevra Baldorietta.

Antonio Magliabechi's father died when Antonio was a young man, and he worked briefly in the studio of Matteo Roselli, but was apprenticed to a goldsmith in Ponto Vecchio.

Antonio Magliabechi was nicknamed the Enciclopedic, the animated Library, a literary glutton, and the most rational of bibliomaniacs, inasmuch as he read everything he bought.

Antonio Magliabechi wore his clothes until they fell from him, and thought it a great waste of time to undress at night, "life being so short and books so plentiful".

Antonio Magliabechi welcomed all inquiring scholars, provided they did not disturb him while at work.

Antonio Magliabechi left his books to the Grand Duke to be used as a public library; his fortune went to the poor.

Antonio Magliabechi's library, known as the "Magliabechiana", was combined with the grand-ducal private library by Victor Emmanuel II of Italy in 1861, the two forming the core of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze.

Antonio Magliabechi was a man of a most forbidding and savage aspect, and exceedingly negligent of his person.

Antonio Magliabechi's diet was commonly three hard-boiled eggs, with a draught of water.

Antonio Magliabechi did not care about personal hygiene and slept in his clothes.

Antonio Magliabechi had a small window in his door, through which he could see all those who approached him; and if he did not wish for their company, he would not admit them.

Antonio Magliabechi spent some hours in each day at the palace library; but is said never in his life to have gone farther from Florence than to Prato, whither he once accompanied Cardinal Henry Noris, librarian at the Vatican, to see a manuscript.