Librarians subjected to confinement: Anita Mondolfo

Abstract

The article traces the professional and personal history of Anita Mondolfo, an Italian librarian of Jewish origins who in 1940, on the day (June 10th) of the declaration of war, was arrested and accused of being an element capable of disrupting the public order in exceptional times. She, then at the age of 54, was released only in December 1942, after two and a half years of political confinement.

Born in Senigallia in 1886, even as a teenager Anita Mondolfo was conspicuous by her temperament, which was inclined to literature and study. After high school, she studied philosophy and philology at Florence's Institute of Higher Practical Studies (today's University).

After a short period as a teacher, she was appointed assistant librarian in 1909 and from 1911 worked at the National Central Library of Florence, where she was responsible for the reference department. During the First World War, Mondolfo worked for soldiers and their families, being an active participant in solidarity and aid initiatives.

Matured by the experiences of difficult years, Mondolfo increasingly rejected the culture and rhetoric of the fascist regime, a rejection which was to become more radical over the years. Hers was not so much political acceptance of the ideas of her many antifascist friends, but rather a sort of intellectual and moral attraction.

In 1926 she was appointed to her first executive position, as director of the State Library of Lucca, and in 1928 she moved to Florence's Marucelliana Library. In 1931 she was one of the speakers at the first conference of the Association of Italian Librarians, where she proposed arrangements for central and cooperative cataloguing.

In 1933 she joined the Florence branch of the Fascist Party, because membership was mandatory for public servants. In 1936, she was appointed director of the National Library of Florence, a post from which she was dismissed a year later because she was considered an opponent of the fascist regime. Until her confinement Anita Mondolfo lived in Rome, working for the national series of printed library catalogues («Indici e cataloghi») and the Enciclopedia italiana.

After the Liberation, in 1945, Anita Mondolfo was reappointed as director of the National Library of Florence, where she undertook various projects, including the revision of the alphabetical catalogues and of the reference rooms, as well as the updating of the subject headings.

Of Mondolfo's long career, we would mention also a number of publications (an exhaustive bibliography is appended) and her activities as a lecturer at the School for Librarians and Archivists-Palaeographers of Florence.

Anita Mondolfo died in Senigallia in 1977, aged 91.