"Is it really possible that the catalogue of the sixteenth century owned by Italian libraries has still not been compiled? Is it really possible that the bibliography of the editions of the sixteenth century printed in Italy has not yet been compiled?" two questions/accusations that scholars have been making for ten years. Italy does not have, even today, any of the elaborate means for obtaining knowledge about the ancient heritage in its libraries, one of the richest in the world. The proposal to assess, if not exactly to catalogue, the sixteenth century works present in Italian libraries, both public and private, state or ecclesiastic, of local authorities or various types of cultural institute, was solicited in the 50s and the 60s, above all by Francesco Barberi. The "Iccu", 'Istituto centrale per il catalogo unico e per le informazioni bibliografiche' (The central institute for a single catalogue and for bibliographic information), took heed in the 70s; it promoted scientific and professional meetings and, at last in 1985, began the publication of 'Le edizioni italiane del XVI secolo' (Italian editions of the sixteenth century). Angela Vinay, in the preface of the first volume, wrote that the censimento nazionale (national census), the emblematic subtitle of the book "represents the introduction to the creation of the retrospective national bibliography that has been augured by many to fill a historical gap in our country". She also writes that the project should ideally refer to the 'Indice generale degli incunaboli' (General index of the incunabula), finished in 1981, one of the few cataloguing undertakings of great importance that has ever been finished in Italy. The initiative of Iccu is undoubtedly commendable, but today it can boast of only four volumes, the last of which concludes the letter C, edited in 1996. It is true that 'Istituto centrale' (The Central Institute) has recently shifted its interest from the publication of the volumes to the enlargement of the bibliographic data base, but it is also true that scholars will still have to wait to know about the possessions of Italian libraries. For how long?

Knowledge about sixteenth century printed works in Italy has been boosted, thanks to the drawing up of catalogues of books printed in Italy in the sixteenth century, and owned by important European and American institutions and institutions in other parts of the world, such as the National in Paris, The British Library, The Library of Congress,... It is a paradoxical and scandalous situation, but that is how it is.

The assessment initiative has undoubtedly brought about a renewed interest in the volumes printed in the sixteenth century and, as a consequence, the publication of sixteenth century catalogues. Some regions, in particular Emilia-Romagna, Lombardia, Lazio and Tuscany have, for several years been thinking about recognising and cataloguing sixteenth century editions and are taking part in co-operative projects with Iccu and European institutes. Emilia-Romagna actively participates in CERL, the Consortium of European Research Libraries; whose aim is to create a single European data base of records of books produced until 1830, as Rosaria Campioni remembers in 'Il linguaggio della biblioteca. Scritti in onore di Diego Maltese' (The language of the library. Writings in honour of Diego Maltese.) (Bibliographic edition, 1996).

The financial and scientific participation of the regions concerns all the libraries without any discrimination in terms of ownership, but favours the out-of-town libraries and minor cultural or ecclesiastic institutes. The assets of these institutions are little known, if known at all. For this reason, writes Nicoletta Longo Campus in Catalogazione retrospettiva: esperienze nelle biblioteche del Lazio (Retrospective cataloguing: experience in the libraries of Lazio) (AIB, 1996), they are "more easily liable to dispersion". The description of the works of the fifteen hundreds is both an act of conscience and an intervention of evaluation and custody of the national library heritage.

The birth of degree courses in the conservation of cultural assets in various universities has further increased interest in the subject: degree theses have studied and catalogued important collections, often work of a high analytical level, published by the libraries or professional editors.

The cataloguing of the libro antico (antique book) is an open-ended problem and a recurrent reason for argument over the type of lettura (literature) it represents and claims to be. It is not unusual to come across incomprehension between librarian and student, who, instead of a catalogue registration would like a description for his research, a critical sample of the objective aspects and concepts of the document, a codicological, bibliological, philological or strictly literary representation. Neither is it unusual for incomprehension to arise between librarian and student concerning the adoption of standards and norms that derive from different principals and cataloguing traditions. No catalogue of the sixteenth century edition, edited by librarians or Italian or European institutes or institutes in other parts of the world, has yet won unanimous approval, although there is no shortage of excellent products.
Gedeon Borsa, curator of the retrospective national bibliography at the Orszàgos Széchényi KOnyvvAr in Budapest, in 'Libri antichi e catalogazione. Metodologie e esperienza. Atti Del seminario di Roma, 23 - 25 settembre 1981 (Iccu, 1984) (Antique books and cataloguing. Methodology and experience. Proceedings from the Rome seminar, 23-25 September 1981) refers to a central problem concerning the cataloguing of antique books: " Both the style of the names and the titles of the sixteenth century editions can vary considerably, not only from one work to another but from one edition to another. It is, therefore, indispensable that an author or a text appears in the volume of the indexes of the Corpus under a single form. To this end, fixed and coherent principals are necessary, to the formulation of which the Thesaurus scriptorum titulorumque may constitute a valid contribution. The anonyms and pseudonyms present a series of problems that can be resolved only systematically. The right form of the name of an author and other people who have collaborated in the production of a sixteenth century work, can be determined by the country of origin of the author himself (for example in the versions of the national bibliography) much better than anywhere else. In cases of uncertainty (for example in the case of countries that do not exist anymore), experts in the various disciplines would have to decide on the standard form. What is involved is, therefore, a vast amount of work, with tens of thousands of names and titles, without counting the number of varying forms that are in their hundreds of thousands. It is clear, therefore, that for such an undertaking, international collaboration is necessary.

The cataloguer of antique books meets the problem of standardising the heading to a much greater extent than the cataloguer of modern books. Which form should be used to express the names of the authors of the classical Greek, Latin, Byzantine world and that of the ancient East, of the medieval and the humanist period? Which form should express the varying title of a work? The formulation of the heading is without doubt a complex job that involves
a. the form of the name to select, if the name of the author appears in variant forms in different editions from his own work:
1. do you choose the form with which the author is mainly identified in the edition of his works in the original text, even if it is not his real name or the name in the original form?

2. do you choose the form with which the author is normally mentioned in the indexes, a form can differ from that present in the editions? What if it is not uniformly vouched for?

b. in what order should the elements of the name be cited: Sanzio Raffaell or Raffaello Sanzio?

c.what form of the title of the work should be adopted: Regimen sanitatis Salernitanum or Flos medicinae Salerni?

d.what language should be chosen? Is the title in the language by which the work is known in Italian or in the language in which the work was written?

Italy is lacking in authority files drawn up by authoritative bibliographic agencies or important libraries, such as CDMARC Names, that contains the authority file of the Library of Congress with about 2,700,000 entries, the LA Authorities Collection, again from the Library of Congress on CD ROM, but published by OCLC, the Library of Congress Name Authority File (LCNAF), available also on line, Les notices d'autorité de BN-OPALE della Bibliothèque Nationale de France with about 500,000 entries. Italy is also lacking in authority lists such as the Personennamen der Antike (PAN) e Personennamen des Mittelalters (PMA) published by Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, two very important lists of names of the classical and medieval world.

The ICCU has published the Authority file. Lista di autorità degli enti presenti nella Bibliografia nazionale italiana del 1981 (The authority list of the bodies present in the national Italian bibliography of 1981). The central national library Vittorio Emmanuele II in Rome has published the Lista di intestazioni uniformi di enti stranieri (The list of uniform intestations of foreign entities) in 1994 and 1996 (but is it the job of an Italian institute to compile the list of uniform intestations of foreign entities?) and the university of Perugia has distributed internally to the users of Dobis-Libris the Lista degli enti colletivi in Dobis-Libris (the list of the collective bodies in Dobis-Libris) in 1986. A scholar, Vittorio Volpi, has published Doc. Dizionario della opere classiche (Dictionary of classical works) (Bibliographic editor 1994), which is an exceptional piece of work for the undertaking that it involved. The Associazione dei bibliotecari ecclesiastici italiani (the Association of Italian Ecclesiastical librarians) began the publication of Acolit. Autori cattolici e opere liturgiche (Bibliographic editor 1998) (Acolit. Catholic authors and liturgical works) while the Franciscan Foundation is proceeding with the drawing up of lists of medieval authors, a collaboration between medievalists and librarians.

There is a lack of indications as to the hierarchy of the consultation sources, in the style of Liste der fachlichen Nachschlagewerke zu den Normdateien of the Deutsche Bibliothek (German Library). It is only recently that the Italian cataloguer can count on Proposta per una gerarchia delle fonti: autore personale (proposal for a hierarchy of sources: personal author) by Carlo Pastena (Sicily region, 1997), a review of principal lists to be scrolled in order to establish the standard form of the name of the author and the title of the work.
I mentioned above the intervention of scholars and institutes (universities, regions, town councils) in the compiling of sixteenth century catalogues. Local projects, included in a common regional, national or international authority programme, are showing very good signs of success and represent a path to be followed. If each library inserted its own "tessera", cut according to an agreed standard, set in harmony with the others, following a sagacious direction, the overall design of the mosaic could be defined and become readable within an acceptable length of time. A single database could be built, integrated and authoritatively controlled. This would allow many small or suburban institutes to capture information already existing and allow all the partners to check the news; a mine of information at the service of the community.

The region of Tuscany has been moving along these lines for a few years. The Library and Librarian Assets Office began, in 1996, the project "Catalogazione del libro antico" (the cataloguing of antique books); it has constituted the scientific commission "Gruppo di catalogazione del libro antico", composed of library experts and university professors in librarianship; it has promoted study courses on the description and indication by author. It has programmed meetings with librarians involved in the initiative; for about two years it has been trying to construct a single cumulative data base of news drawn from different places and, at times with a lack of homogeneity, with the object of reaching an integrated and controlled data base.

The Catalogo delle edizioni del Cinquecento (catalogue of sixteenth century editions) of the City Council Library of Empoli is to form a part of this project. It is written by Eleonora Gargiulo in a methodical, competent and precise way. It is a "tessera" for the regional mosaic, fruit of a cultural milieu that has Tuscany as its financial and scientific epicentre. It is, moreover, a product that is intended for network consultation via Internet; in this sense it is a model for imitation, a product to be proud of, all the more so because it is from Empoli.
Mauro Guerrini, University of Udine