Vittorio Piccaroli
(Director from 1860 to 1878)
(Livorno, 1809 - Pavia, 1878)
Piccaroli graduated in medicine in Pavia in 1831 and served as assistant in botany and ophthalmology although cultivating interest in the humanities in the library, where he was welcomed as coadjutor in 1843 and as deputy director in 1847. At the end of 1860 he took the lead until his death.
With the unification of Italy, the director of the University Library became officially autonomous.
First historian of the Library, he wrote Notizie intorno alla R. Biblioteca Universitaria di Pavia (Pavia, Fusi, 1873; location: Misc. 4 1341 5 e Misc. 8 2166 25), on the occasion of the Universal Exposition of Vienna in 1873 where also the University Library participated. After the death he was commemorated by a marble portrait and a plaque, now walled in the atrium of catalogs, which reads:
IL DOTT. FISICO / VITTORIO PICCAROLI / CAVALIERE MAURIZIANO/ DI ANIMO MITISSIMO / D'ELOQUIO SOBRIO ELEGANTE / NELLA BOTANICA E NELLE LETTERE / VERSATISSIMO / FINO OSSERVATORE / DEGLI UOMINI E DELLE COSE / RESSE CON LODE LA BIBLIOTECA TICINESE / DAL 1861 AL GIORNO 6 DICEMBRE 1878 / ULTIMO DI SUA VITA QUASI SETTUAGENARIA / A LUI QUESTO SEGNO D'AFFETTO / AMICI E COLLEGHI TRIBUTARONO
Find the manuscripts of Vittorio Piccaroli in Inventario Manoscritti Ticinesi