LIBRARY
The Sicilian Region decree D.D.G. no. 6252, 11th December 2018, states that the collection of books known as the “Casa Cuseni Book Collection”, pursuant to Article 13 of Legislative Decree no. 42 of 22nd January 2004 and subsequent amendments and additions, is declared to be of major cultural interest, as it is listed among the assets noted in Article 10, paragraph 3, letter c) of the same Legislative Decree and in Article 2 of Regional Law No 80/77 and is therefore subject to all the protection provisions contained in the above-mentioned laws.
The book collection of Casa Cuseni Library consists of an ancient collection and a modern collection specialising in the Arts and Crafts Movement and literature, which coexist together with material of a more properly archival nature, from private correspondence to worksheets of intellectual activity, from autograph notes to paratextual material (in a broad sense, also ‘added’ to the single copy possessed) that fully reconstructs the profile of the owners, the events of their lives and the many scholars who worked here.
Famous people such as: Lord Bertrand Russell (who was told in this library that he had won the Nobel Prize for literature), Anatole France, Denis Mack Smith (who wrote his entire monumental work on the history of Italy and Sicily in this library), Ezra Pound, Tennessee Williams, Rohal Dahl, André Gide, Roger Peyrefitte (who wrote the books that made the city of Taormina famous), and famous artists such as Salvador Dalì and Pablo Picasso, the Presidents of the Royal British Art Academies Sir Frank Brangwyn, Sir Alfred East, Sir George Clausen, Richard Henry Wrigh, Cecil Arthur Hunt, as well as the Italian Futurist painters and sculptors, (Giacomo Balla, Fortunato Depero, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti), and Duilio Cambellotti, who left in this house photographs of his stage sets that would be staged at the Ancient Theatre. Our archives are intact and will be a valuable source for those who wish to study the many artists who lived in Casa Cuseni, in order to better understand the library, its dynamics, and the cultural contextualisation of the archive.
The first owner, the British artist Robert Hawthorn Kitson, who conceived the core of the library and expanded it over the years, was a prominent local and international personality.
In our management approach, we always take into account the author of the work. Only this knowledge can allow a proper approach of the library. Some of the works we possess are extremely valuable and represent a unicum – as, on the other hand, does every printed copy – both from a bibliographical and bibliological point of view, and in the more broadly cultural context, in that they reflect the reading, study and training practices of the owner and of all the scholars gathered here. Many of our specimens, catalogued by the Messina Heritage Board, are frequently accompanied by autographed dedications, ex libris, postils and handwritten notes in the margins of the text, and so on. From this point of view, attention in cataloguing the specimens and their description is necessary, and a duty, particularly in a country like ours, heir to a prestigious literary and cultural tradition.
A specific focus that highlights their potential as sources for cultural and historical research. It would be auspicious to carry out a scientifically controlled reconnaissance of the library, which would enable the researcher to grasp the geographical and cultural links between the collections of different authors present here, based on their bibliographical, bibliological, paratextual and archival properties in our collections.
