New collections for the Pio XII Library

by Giovanni Iannettone – Coordinator of the Pio XII Library

The Pio XII Library continues to grow thanks to new funds that enrich it, to offer our students and all those who benefit from interlibrary loans more and more research tools.

Thanks to benefactors, donations and various campaigns, the Ratzinger-Benedetto XVI Fund project grows and acquires physiognomy, which has come to count 1278 titles (in addition to the Opera Omnia in several languages) on Ratzinger’s theological thought. A project aimed at supporting the study, research and publications of the Faculty of Theology, especially at the level of Licentiate and Doctorate, which among its characteristic elements has precisely the deepening of the thought of Joseph Ratzinger.

For historians interested in reconstructing the intellectual career of a great figure of the twentieth century, the Library has been embellished with the Ernesto de la Torre Villar Fund, historian of republican Mexico, and one of the most representative Catholic intellectuals of Mexico, with an enviable curriculum: book historian and director of the National Library of Mexico for thirteen years, founder of the chair of Historia de la Civilización Mexicana at the Catholic Institute of Paris and member of the Commission Editorial of the Revista de la Facultad de Teologia of the University of Navarra, he has published, among others, La Iglesia en México de la Independencia a la Reforma. In addition to paying homage to a great intellectual and a great country, the goal is to become a reference point for scholars interested in the history of Mexico and America.

Also worth mentioning is the Evan E. Kimble Fund destined for the Library of the European University of Rome by his daughters Elena and Lizabeth. Kimble, an American man of culture, son and grandson of New Jersey industrialists in the field of glass (Kimble Glass Company), chose to devote himself to culture instead of business, cultivating his studies in many disciplines and moving to Europe for this. After graduating in French Literature and Medieval History at Princeton University, he perfected his education especially in Germany, in Göttingen, home to one of the most prestigious universities. Throughout his life, he was a tireless buyer and collector of texts, mostly relating to disciplines such as history, political science, literature. His book collection is located partly in Rome and partly in Göttingen.