Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Firenze Review

It's not a museum, it's a library, and they don't let tourists in.

I died of rabies, because they only let visitors enter on Saturdays, in the morning .... unfortunately!

Really disrespectful employees, who laughed at us for not being italian. Shame.

The loan or consultation service for books is PESSIMO. The loan request is possible only in the morning and to consult a book you have to request it an hour before and it is only allowed in certain time slots. It is not possible that there are similar obstacles to those who must study, it is not possible that there are procedures so long, complex and at different times. Not to mention the fact that before entering you have to deposit everything in the lockers and touch the library with books, computers, water, boxes and various sheets, all in hand! The photocopy service is very expensive, the alternative is to take pictures with a cell phone, obviously this is not the best solution for those who would need a copy of dozens and decide on pages. Also part of the staff is really rude. Too bad, the library is very nice, but the services are bad.

A cold, gray, inhospitable place, a deposit of culture. Unlike the central English and Welsh libraries that host temporary topical exhibitions, cafes, restaurants, permanent exhibitions, guided tours, here you find machines in a dark underground, an old and useless public telephone, slow distributions, inability to register online or to book a book in advance to not have to go crazy and wait for hours (especially if you are not from the city), rigidity in the booking (ok give me three books at a time but keep the other three ready when I give you the first ones, don't keep me waiting another hour
and a half), Machiavellian online booking system. Culture is perceived as
monolithic and elitist and this library is not among the people. It looks like a trip in the seventies.
Ah ... you can't wear strapless clothes ?? What is this Puritanism? But get off the pedestal please!

Beautiful Library in the heart of Florence. Refined Architecture and Art with the very best of the Italian literature
Just some minutes walking from the Galleria dell'Ufficio. It is a must see in Florence. Highly recommend.

A guided tour of the archives is highly recommended.

Excellent library with very nice staff. Reviewers, please stop complaining about not being able to sightsee there. It is a library not a tourist attraction. The staff's priority is to protect its unique collections, and facilitate access for readers. If you can't speak Italian, you're obviously not a legitimate reader since you won't be able to understand 99% of the books. The admission policy is logical and fair, for goodness sake stop complaining.

I truly want to thank all the staff , I visit the library quite often and the ladies there are absolutely the finest and nicest I have ever met, always available to serve with most educated manners and culturally prepared to offer you the best suggestions.
The library is one the widest Italy and spaces are huge. worth visiting it .
Florentine people let always recognize as the most cultural people in Italy is each case, so proud to be born in Florence the Magnificent ex capital of Italy. Appreciate the relaxing silence and the books smell in all rooms there. Enjoy Florence.

They did not let us through and they treated us horrible I'm outraged

Excellent place if you like old and historic documentation. The Leonardo Da Vinci exposition is Unmissable. Staff is very friendly.

Beautiful building and great location right next to other important monuments and sights.

Home deplorable, no communication effort with visitors not knowing Italian speak. Visits are "possible" only on Saturday morning, when we saw a group of visitors inside. Very bad, especially as the building is superb.

Pretty cool looking structure. Very nice inside as well

LIBRARY

Your shell is from your sea
the port of words that we welcome.

After visiting the places where people come and go, come to the library to be quiet. People are not many. Sometimes you can come and enjoy it.

ATTENTION, TOURISTS: THIS IS NOT A TOURIST PLACE, IT IS A WORK AND STUDY PLACE. That said, the collection is very well maintained and the professionals highly trained. A very serious place for research, documentation, conservation and careful cultural dissemination. I was able to see an excellent exhibition on the construction of the myth around the figure and work of Leonardo da Vinci.

The main victim of the 1966 floods, the Library now houses a few exhibitions and research rooms.

Tourists not allowed in. Beautiful to pics from across the river. No need to attend

Anyone who is on their way to Florence is a place to go and is very easy to find.

It would be the case that those accompanying visitors would put on white cotton gloves before going through pages of ancient volumes !!!!!! ...... maybe even a mask for sneezing !!! If caretakers follow the rules, the carers must also follow them !!!

Best and largest Italian library with almost 6,000,000 worldwide items!!

No visitor pass. If you are not local you cannot enter. I just wanted to study but not allowed.

My husband and I have been in Florence for one month. We stayed in an apartment just 2 minutes from the library. We went to see it and was told we couldn t come in, which is absolutely understandable, although the woman at the desk was very curt. They told us to return on a Saturday morning at 11:30 for a tour. When we returned today, the man at the office told us to wait outside. My husband speaks Italian, after studying for many years. The man was gruff and impatient with us. We waited outside and finally left. This was probably the worst place we were treated. Everywhere else the people were friendly, helpful and kind. I find it unnecessary to have such rude behavior.
Ed and Danielle Mack
Florida, USA

Me and my friend asked if we could study here, they rejected us for couple interesting reasons:
1. The library is currently full. (We went there on monday morning)
2. You have to live in Florence to get inside.
3. You can not get inside if it is only for once.
4. The library allows only consultations.

vaffanculo

As a visitor, I have no idea why I can't take a look inside the library.

Beautiful library, very charming, structure born on the Lungarno.

We didn't go in there but it looked so massive and great from outside

Unfortunately it was closed and without information of opening hours. It is a beautiful building but needs maintenance in the gardens and the building itself, which presents severe pathologies.

Given the current situation, the reading / loan service is carried out in an appropriate manner

It is a beautiful, well-stocked library with very comfortable reading stations. Too bad that the information to collect the texts requested on loan is not available on the site.
I followed all the instructions, I hung up the e-mail telling me that the books were available, but no one took care to mention that it was necessary to make an appointment to collect. I go to the library and, even with great rudeness, they inform me that you can find all the information if you search NOT LOAN (which was what I was interested in), but how to access.
There was no possibility to collect the books, as the collection appointment was given to me only after the availability of the book had expired, i.e. after more than 2 weeks

Open to the public (non-members) Saturday 11-2 for guided tours only. The English tour I went on was in Italian as the guide apologized his English was not that good. That was disappointing. The building inside is starting to show signs of neglect and I don't recommend it as a place to visit, unless you are a member and want to use it as a library!

One of the two National Libraries. Unique building overlooking the Arno, where Manzoni came to rinse his Italian. A temple of Italian culture.

The most rude and disrespectful staff of any other library in the center gathered in one of the most beautiful structures in Florence.

national library of florence, closed during my visit.

Supplied and supplied..grande is great..but it is a disaster for everything else ... The loan takes place at specific times and with illogical timing. Ask for the text at one hour and you have to wait a certain amount of time about another hour for you to be able to withdraw it .. to take advantage of the loan you have to make a special form obviously on specific days and times .. depending on the days. There is a limit of texts that can be requested if I am not mistaken 2 or 4. They check the status of the book at the time of the loan but the times escapes them so if you find it underlined and when returning them they see that - who knows why they had written not underlined - the cabbages are yours !!!! Unfriendly, unprofessional, antisocial, very formal, haughty staff. The library keeps all the printed material produced in Italy, the doctoral theses and hundreds and thousands of texts ...

Undoubtedly a nice library, but visitors are strongly discouraged. Books here are generally not for reading or consultation, only storage. The presumably wonderful reading rooms are not for general use. For a devoted student of library history and library architecture, this is somewhat depressing. But not unexpected.

I found books and documents that cannot be found elsewhere. Also excellent as a place to study or read in peace

National library containing all the books published in Italy

Fantastic library, excellent assortment of books and reasonable availability of staff towards user satisfaction.

National Central Library
It is an important European library and one of the largest libraries in Italy. A library that feels history. The photo shows the exterior of the Central Library and its alleys.

The non-accessibility to the loan of texts (not manuscripts and rare) on the basis of residence and above all on the basis of employment, which if not inherent to the cultural sphere is not worthy of being able to use this service, is far from public from the cultural promotion that this place should bestow.
(Regardless of the current pandemic situation)

What a majestic work ... out.
Equipped with a vast array of books.

In the imagination of those who love books, perhaps heaven looks like this library. And the beauty is that, in itself, it also "contains" hell, in the bureaucracy, in the rude users, in the dysfunctions and slownesses due to lack of personnel: all things that perhaps make you angry, but never really affect the sense of serenity and love for the knowledge that you can breathe within the walls of this "temple" ...

The National Central Library of Florence (BNCF) is one of the most important Italian and European libraries. Together with the National Library of Rome, it carries out the functions of a central national library.
It has approximately 5,948,235 printed volumes, 2,703,899 pamphlets, 24,991 manuscripts, 3,716 incunabula, 29,123 editions from the 16th century and over 1,000,000 autographs, and has 304,214 works consulted for the year 2013. The shelving of the library deposits covers currently 135 linear km, with an annual increase of over 1 km and a half.

December 18, 2017, 4.30 pm.
I wanted to consult the newspaper library, they tell me that I have to register. The only person in charge of the recordings, surrounded by some trifles, receives external calls.
The desire has passed away.