Luigi Michelini Tocci

Luigi Michelini Tocci (28 April 1910 – 15 February 2000) was an Italian librarian and art historian, specialising in miniatures.

Biography

Luigi Michelini Tocci was born in Cagli. He completed his higher studies at the Massimo Institute in Rome. Appointed director of the Municipal Library of Cagli, in 1930 he published a study on a manuscript of the Aeneid, preserved there. In 1932, on a scholarship, he moved to Hungary. In 1933, he graduated in literature at the Sapienza University under Pietro Paolo Trompeo, defending a thesis on Léon Bloy.

From 1934 to 1944 he was director of the Biblioteca Oliveriana in Pesaro and was interested in the collection of medals preserved in the Civic Museum. During his directorship, the Library's premises, in Palazzo Almerici, were restored and in 1936 the 1st Marche Bibliographic Exhibition was organised there, for which Tocci edited the catalogue. In 1936 he organised a training course for staff of popular and school libraries, devised by the Bibliographic Superintendence of Romagna and Marche.

In November 1944 he joined the Vatican Apostolic Library and was in charge of the Papal collection of medals. In 1959 he became head of the Numismatic Cabinet of the same Library and in 1978 head of the section of ‘Objects of Art’ owned by the Library. Passionate about nineteenth-century literature, Italian Renaissance art and the history of books, he published essays on illuminated manuscripts of the Renaissance, catalogued incunabula and edited catalogues of exhibitions in the Vatican: Quinto centenario della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1475-1975 (1975), Legature papali da Eugenio IV a Paolo VI (1977), Bernini in Vaticano (1981). He published monographs on Raphael and his time, and on ancient works of art and architecture in Pesaro and its surroundings. He collaborated on the Enciclopedia Dantesca, published by Treccani.

He was entrusted with teaching the History of Books and Libraries at the Vatican School of Library Science and the History of the Miniature at the Vatican School of Palaeography, Diplomatics and Archival Science. He was a member of the Association of Italian Librarians, for the ‘Lazio’ section; a member of the Società romana di storia patria (since 1973) and of the Pontifical Academy of Archaeology, of which he was also secretary, from 1971 to 1979.

Works

• I padre di Raffaello: Giovanni Santi e alcune delle sue opere più rappresentative nella regione di Urbino e in quella di Pesaro (1961)
• Pittori del 400 ad Urbino e a Pesaro (1965)
• I medaglioni romani e i contorniati del Medagliere Vaticano / descritti da Luigi Michelini Tocci; con un'«Appendice» riguardante alcune lamine in argento e in bronzo e alcuni dischi di bronzo (1965; 2 volumes)
• Pesaro sforzesca nelle tarsie del coro di S. Agostino (1971)
• Eremi e cenobi del Catria (1972)
• Gradara e i castelli a sinistra del Foglia (1974)
• ROSS. 94; Il libro delle ore: volume di commento all'edizione in facsimile del Cod. ROSS. 94 della Biblioteca apostolica vaticana (1984)
• In officina Erasmi: l'apparato autografo di Erasmo per l'edizione 1528 degli Adagia e un nuovo manoscritto del Compendium vitae (1989)

Collaborations

• "Immagine di Leon Bloy." In: Studi sulla letteratura dell'Ottocento in onore di Pietro Paolo Trompeo (1957)
• "Dei libri a stampa appartenuti al Colocci." In: Atti del convegno di studi su Angelo Colocci: Jesi, 13-14 settembre 1969 (1972), pp. 77–96.
• "Un pontificale da Colonia a Cagli nel secolo XI e alcuni saggi di scrittura cagliese tra il secolo XI e XII." In: Palaeographica, diplomatica et archivistica: studi in onore di Giulio Battelli, Vol. 1 (1979), pp. 265–94.

As editor

• Alexis de Tocqueville, Arthur de Gobineau, Corrispondenza (1843-1859) (1947; translation and notes)
• Augustin Thierry, Racconti del tempo dei Merovingi (1949)
• Il Dante urbinate della Biblioteca Vaticana: Codice urbinate latino 365 (1965)
• Le rocche di Francesco di Giorgio (1967)
• Quinto centenario della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1475-1975: catalogo della mostra (1975)
• Legature papali da Eugenio IV a Paolo VI: catalogo della mostra con 211 tavole delle quali 35 a colori (1977)
• Biblia pauperum: riproduzione del Codice Palatino latino 143 (1979; with Lamberto Donati)
• Lorenzo Bernini (1981; with Giovanni Morello, Valentino Martinelli & Marc Worsdale)
• Giovanni Santi, La vita e le gesta di Federico di Montefeltro duca d'Urbino: poema in terza rima: codice vat. ottob. lat. 1305 (1985)

External links

• Works by Luigi Michelini Tocci at Gallica