The International Civic Library of

Bordighera Bordighera (; lij, A Bordighea, locally ) is a town and ''comune'' in the Province of Imperia, Liguria (Italy). Geography Bordighera is located from the land border between Italy and France, and it is possible to see the French coast with a nak ...

is at 52 via Romana.

History

The first library of

was founded by the British in 1880 and was in the city’s

Anglican Church Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

. In 1910 the British community decided to build a dedicated library on Via Romana to host a growing collection. Funds were gathered by

Clarence Bicknell Clarence Bicknell (27 August 1842 – 17 July 1918) was a British vicar, amateur archaeologist, botanist, artist, Esperantist, author and philanthropist. He founded the Bicknell Museum in Bordighera, Italy. Also named after him is a street in Bo ...

who designed a Victorian stone building with a façade embellished by a semi-circular portico, supported by six columns, and made even more beautiful by the presence of a

wisteria ''Wisteria'' is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family, Fabaceae (Leguminosae), that includes ten species of woody twining vines that are native to China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Southern Canada, the Eastern United States, and nor ...

now centenary. After the Second World War, the library was bought by the city of

and restored in 1985 by the Genoese architect

Gianfranco Franchini Gianfranco Franchini (December 17, 1938 – April 21, 2009) was an Italian architect. Biography Born in Genoa and educated at the Polytechnic University of Milan, Franchini is best known for his collaboration with Renzo Piano and Richard Rog ...

, particularly known for his work with

Renzo Piano Renzo Piano (; born 14 September 1937) is an Italian architect. His notable buildings include the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (with Richard Rogers, 1977), The Shard in London (2012), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City ...

at the

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

of Paris. The library boasts the title of "International" because it has a collection of about 40,000 volumes in Italian, 20,000 in English, 6,000 in French and 3,000 in German. The library also has a collection of about 950 old digitized photos of the Victorian Bordighera.http://www.bordighera.it/allegati/3000252_pieghevole.pdf

Notes

External links

Official website of the Bordighera Library

{{coord missing, Italy Libraries established in 1910 Libraries in Liguria