The Palace
Next to the Cathedral, on the right, stands the palace, built in the 15th century and originally the seat of the Municipality and the courthouse.
In 1466, the humanist Guarnerio d’Artegna, patriarchal vicar and parish priest of San Daniele, left 165 invaluable codices from his library to the community of San Daniele with the condition that they could be consulted by all. Thus was born the first public library in Friuli and one of the first in Europe, housed in the town hall.
The initial endowment was later supplemented by thirty codices donated by Peter of Cattaro, and in 1736, two thousand printed books and one hundred and one manuscript volumes donated by Giusto Fontanini, the bishop of San Daniele, who also left the Municipality the sum necessary for the expansion of the building.
The palace was expanded twice towards the bell tower to accommodate the ever-expanding library. The foundation stone of the oldest section, characterized by the five arches of the loggia, was laid on July 3, 1415. The second section, which today houses the Guarneriana’s books, was erected in 1738 based on a design by architect Luca Andrioli, who was then working on the renovations of the Cathedral. The third section, intended for the archive and chancellery, was built in 1780.
The ancient heritage of the Guarneriana
In 1797, during the Napoleonic era, ten of the most valuable codices were stolen on the orders of the French commissioner Gaspare Monge. Only thanks to the cunning of the librarian, who feigned forgetfulness, was the damage limited; the stolen codices are currently held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris.
The ancient heritage also includes approximately 80 incunabula, including a Justinian Codex printed in Venice in 1482, enriched by a splendid miniature depicting the Emperor Justinian, the precious Byzantine Bible from the end of the 12th century and a manuscript witness of the Divine Comedy from the end of the 14th century, as well as more than 700 sixteenth-century volumes and numerous other works from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, for a total of approximately 12,000 ancient printed volumes.