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The Library
Other Collections
The promptbooks collection of the Burcardo consists of about 1.900
items, more than a half manuscripts. The  promptbooks catalogue is now available
online.
Many are the 19th century promptbooks, belonging to important companies of that age
(Compagnia Reale Sarda, Compagnia Bellotti-Bon). Several of them have authorization stamps
and censorship cuts of different ruling authorities, therefore they constitute interesting
examples of the relation between theatre and political power in the Italian history of
1800. Large is also the number of Neapolitan promptbooks of late 1800 and first 1900,
including works by Minchini, Scarpetta and others.
Among the autograph promptbooks are worthy to be cited the famous Pirandello's Liolà double
version in Italian and Sicilian dialect, La nemica by Dario Niccodemi, Notte
'e neve by Roberto Bracco, Carne bianca by Luigi Chiarelli, Carlo Gozzi
by Renato Simoni, Elektra by Hugo von Hofmannsthal in a French version for
Eleonora Duse, Chill' è pazzo by Eduardo De Filippo.
The Burcardo houses also a noteworthy collection of film subjects
and screenplays (L'illusione by Renato Simoni is one of them) and TV shows, as
well as a music scores, coming from different collections or passed on by SIAE Music
Division.
The Burcardo Library owns a collection of more than one thousand music
scores, printed or manuscript, mostly songs and music of the 20th century,
belonging to the Girolami and the Petrolini collections.
The collection of letters and manuscripts ( the online
catalogue only includes a small part of the collection) is made of more than 25
thousand documents. The most important group of documents comes from the Rasi Collection,
which also includes some documents of the 17th century. This collection offers an
extensive documentation of the life and activity of actors and playwrights in the 19th
century. Among the personalities well represented in the manuscript collection, we count
Eleonora Duse, Adelaide Ristori, Tommaso Salvini, Ernesto Rossi, Cesare Dondini, Teresa
Franchini. Another collection of documents is related to the Righetti family and to the
Compagnia Reale Sarda.
The Boutet Archive is mostly made of the letters Edoardo Boutet exchanged with actors and
playwrights when he was director of the Stabile Romana. Among the most important names:
Roberto Bracco, Giannino Antona Traversi, Luigi Capuana, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Marco Praga,
Girolamo Rovetta, Eleonora Duse, Tina Di Lorenzo.
Another interesting collection of documents is related to the Scuola di Recitazione di
Firenze and to the controversy between Luigi Rasi and Ernesto Rossi.
The Re Riccardi Archive refers to the relationships between the French and the Italian
theatre between the Nineteenth and the Twentieth century; the Capranica Archives, made of
letters Bartolomeo Capranica exchanged with actors, playwrights and theatre managers, is
related to the activity of the Teatro Valle of Rome during the first half of the 19th
century. The Pasta Archives is made of documents related to Francesco Pasta's activities
as leader and manager of theatre companies.
Other collections of archival documents consist of contracts,
reports, company bylaws, bills and book-keeping records, theatre tickets, etc. The
documents related to the Compagnia Reale Sarda and to Francesco Pasta (1839-1905) have a
high historical value.
The Burcardo Library also houses the SIAE
historical archives, a collection of about 2,600 documents, including application
forms, letters, contracts, minutes of meetings.
The collections of
playbills and theatre
programmes (more than 100 thousand items) have a high historical value. Among the
oldest documents, a group of notices of the 17th century related to the feast for the
birth of the son of Philip IV of Spain (Milan, 1629), to the use of masks during the
Carnival (Milan, 1692), or to the bad habit of not paying the tickets for theatre
perfomances (Milan, 1692 and 1710). The collection also includes some notices of the
Cisalpine Republic and several police regulations for theatres activities and balls, at
the beginning of the 19th century.
The activity of Italian theatres during the 19th century is well documented. The playbill
collection also includes some silk playbills and a collection of poems and dedications in
the honour of actors and playwrights. Other important collections are the chronological
albums of playbills of the Teatro dei Fiorentini of Naples (1868-1869) and of the Teatro
Argentina of Rome (1919-1944).
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