The Alagonian Library represents a precious treasure-trove in which over 70,000 books are carefully conserved; the old section includes 20 illuminated manuscripts, 70 incunabula, and several thousand books printed between 1500 and 1830; the modern section goes from 1831 and is regularly updated with modern editions of books.
The bulky manuscripts, the illuminated manuscripts, the incunabula, the rare books from centuries past, represent a unique part of the cultural heritage of Siracusa, where erudite scholars, historians, students and researchers have studied and continue to do so.
“… sub anathematis paena proecipimus, ne quisquam ab hac Biblioteca Venerabilis Seminarii Clericorum folia, libros, quinterna, e manuscripta quacumque causa, vel quesito colore extrahere, et esportare…”
With the authority awarded to him in Canon Law, this anathema written by Bishop Giambattista Alagona, would ipso facto have fallen on anyone who dared to remove, for whatever reason, pages, manuscripts, books, or parts of books belonging to the Alagona Library in the Archbishopric of Siracusa.
In order to understand the reason that pushed Bishop Alagona to issue this important ecclesiastical decree, otherwise known as “excommunication”, we have to look at the period from the mid-18th century to the first thirty years of the 19th century, when Siracusa reached great cultural heights after centuries of oblivion that had followed the glories of the classical period.