Fonti a stampa per l’eclettismo a Brescia tra secondo Ottocento e primo Novecento: libri e repertori nell’architettura di Antonio Tagliaferri

The paper deals with the professional library of Antonio Tagliaferri (Brescia 1835-1909), who was one of the most important architects and one of the most influential men in the cultural scenery in Brescia during the second half of the Nineteenth century. This library, which has been almost totally preserved by Tagliaferri’s heirs, was donated with the whole archive of Tagliaferri’s atelier to the Ugo Da Como Foundation in Lonato del Garda (Brescia) in 2010, and it has been catalogued an studied thanks to a research agreement stipulated by the University of Brescia and the forenamed Foundation throughout the present PRIN project. This study – stimulated by the uncommon availability of both the professional library and the archive of an architect – examines the main characters and contents of Tagliaferri’s library starting systematic investigations on the role of the printed book as a source of models and inspirations in Tagliaferri’s eclectic design process, considering and comparing his books, sketches, drawings and the executed architectures. The broad cultural interests of Antonio and the extent of his work – corroborated by his close connections with the academic and professional milieu in Milan and by his punctual update on the international architectural debate, testified by his book and review collection – enable to untie him from the local dimension and to project him in a huge context, which is helpful to draw the wider outline of the use of the printed sources (especially repertoires, technical treatises and reviews, all richly illustrated) in the architectural design during the second half of the Nineteenth century up to the first Twentieth century.