Places of historical interest

Biblioteca Civica Renato Bortoli ex Ospedale Baratto

via Carducci 33, Schio

biblioteca.segreteria@comune.schio.vi.it

Description

The building, which was born as a hospital, hosted the prisons and the offices of financial police. Since 1988 it has hosted the Renato Bortoli Public Library, which owns books dated back to xV century.

In the mid-17th century, the first hospital for poor people was built on a four-way crossroads known as the Carobbo. Known as the Baratto; since 1988 it has hosted the Renato Bortoli Public Library. The façade is embellished with an elegant triple lancet window and six quatrefoil windows of the period, while the wing that continues along the Via Baratto, was added in the mid-18th century, including with it the church of Saints Cristopher and Francis. The third building, the so-called Former Prisons, built at the beginning of the 19th century, is visible from inside the library. After the hospital was transferred at the beginning of the 19th century, the complex hosted various public offices, among which the headquarters of the Financial Police. In the internal court, we find two memorial plaques, one in memory of the Schio massacre that took place in July 1945, the other commemorating the Civil Accord Pact, signed in May 2005. The library has an open shelf documentation archive of considerable importance, with a significant collection of books and multimedia material, and more than one hundred magazine subscriptions. The library contains important historic collections and document archives, among which: the legacies of the Pasini-Salasco family, Senator Alessandro Rossi, Giovanni Calendoli, architects Ferruccio Chemello and Vincenzo Bonato. The historical and antique section contains well-preserved ancient books, scrolls, geographic maps and codes from the 15thcentury.