The City of Torino’s Public Library was inaugurated in 1869 inside the Palazzo Civico built by Giuseppe Pomba, editor and municipal councillor. He had favoured the creation of a library that was "open during those hours in which it is easier for the artist and the creator to attend", equipped with all the "general purpose modern works", a useful addition to the technical-professional evening schools and an opportunity to improve all the social classes.
Its founding characteristics were total accessibility for all, its operation at the expense of local public finances, and the creation of an "archive of memories that relates to the city". It was transferred into a more spacious building in 1929, in via della Cittadella which was bombed in 1943. The library was temporarily hosted in Palazzo Carignano and in 1960 it was rebuilt in the same place.
Today, the Civica Centrale Library has more than 500,000 documents including books, pamphlets, audiovisual material, over 2,000 manuscripts, 67 incunabula, 1,600 sixteenth-century books and over 2,800 newsmagazines. The collections of local history, figurative arts, theatre and visual arts are of particular interest. There is a service for blind and dyslexic people.
The oldest documentation dates back to the fifteenth century.
