From Libya to Florence. Giacomo Caputo’s archive and library. A public engagement experience for the 2024 Bright Night at the University of Florence

Abstract

The paper proposes some reflections on the communication to non-specialist audiences of author's fonds. In this specific case, within the initiatives organised by the University of Florence on the occasion of the European researchers' night (Bright Night 2024), a public engagement activity was carried out in order to enhance the documentary and bibliographic heritage of the archaeologist Giacomo Caputo (1901-1992). The event turned into an opportunity to reflect and materialise issues and needs related to the particular typology of the collection. The fond – held at the Humanities library of the University of Florence and now housed at the ‘Paolo Graziosi’ florentine museum and institute of prehistory - consists of an archive and library at the centre of two distinct but closely connected research projects.

In developing an adequate and shared communication strategy for the collections in question, the multidisciplinary angle of the collection was highlighted and addressed: archival science and librarianship intertwine with classical archaeology, restoration, and the history of Italian colonialism in Africa, intersecting with moments of private life and offering a portrait of the archaeologist in his workshop. The experience therefore becomes a case study, highlighting some of the actual difficulties of realisation and proposing possible solutions aiming at communicating such a remarkable heritage even to the non-specialist public, in the light of the university third mission.