Giulio Puliti, Luigi Sturzo and the ‘library flare’

Abstract

In the early years of the 20thcentury a tragic event broke in the history of Italian libraries: the violent and voluntary death of Giulio Puliti, librarian and director of the University Library of Catania, author of several essays. The main reason of Puliti’s death was a violent argument with Luigi Sturzo, a fellow member of the Commission for the reconstruction of the municipal library of Caltagirone, that was destroyed by a terrible fire in 1901. The paper recalls the main steps of the reconstruction of the library of Caltagirone between 1901 and 1904, analyzing the role of Puliti and Sturzo within the Commission and displaying several unpublished documents related to the events.