The Library of the Accademia Lancisiana

The Library of the Accademia Lancisiana occupies three rooms within the Academy. The second room is also used as the office of the President. The large wooden bookcase was commissioned by Deputy Pietro Pericoli in 1882.
The ancient shelving is decorated at the top with terracotta busts of ten of the most famous surgeons and anatomists of the past: Hippocrates, Galen, Valsalva, Morgagni, Fallopius, Cesalpino, Fabricius of Acquapendente, Malpighi, Vesalius, and Aselli. At the top, part of a collection of 19th-century pharmaceutical ceramics from the old Pharmacy of the Ospedale Santo Spirito is on display. The Library’s holdings include around 13,500 volumes mainly focused on medical and scientific subjects, along with a limited number of works in literature, philosophy, religion, and law (16th–20th centuries). The collection is divided into two main sections: the Consolazione collection and the Lancisiana collection. The largest part comes from the Hospital of Santa Maria della Consolazione, which was closed at the end of the 1930s. The smaller part comes from Lancisi’s personal collection, originally housed in the Lancisiana Library. Above the door to the reading room hangs a portrait of Pope Paul V giving his blessing, painted by an unknown artist in the 16th century.