The Theka Caverni has been set up to make available to scholars, as well as others, an integrated archive of digital resources relating to Raffaello Caverni, an unusual person: a man of letters and a country parish priest, a pioneer as regards the nineteenth-century history of science, a passionate communicator and conciliatory evolutionist. His achievements have remained on the margins of more recent studies, partly because his personal archive up to now has been inaccessible owing to its lack of structure.
Thanks to the good will and the access granted by his descendants who nowadays house it and take care of it, the collection has been organised, digitised and catalogued by the Museo Galileo and has now become the cornerstone of this large digital library of manuscripts, letters, printed works, as well as documentary and iconographic material.
Subsequent research in other archives and libraries has made it possible to enrich the holdings of the family and the library of the Museo Galileo: letters that allow, as far as possible, a virtual reconstruction of the exchange of correspondence; documents that, although concerning Raffaello Caverni, had failed to come to his attention; printed texts scattered in niche publications that were difficult to find; old photographs of places that no longer exist today and portraits of important people whose features are otherwise very difficult to know by now. Given that a not insignificant number of institutions have replied positively to our enquiries, allowing us to access their holdings, we hope that further research or findings will allow us over time to extend the list below:
- Archivio Arcivescovile di Firenze
- Archivio della Congregazione per la dottrina della fede, Rome
- Archivio di Stato di Firenze
- Archivio Manfredo da Passano, Genoa
- Archivio storico dell’Osservatorio di Brera
- Archivio storico del Senato della Repubblica, Rome
- Biblioteca Casa della Cultura Alda Merini, Barberino Val d’Elsa
- Biblioteca Civica di Bassano del Grappa
- Biblioteca Comunale Oriana Fallaci di Firenzuola
- Biblioteca di scienze dell’Università degli Studi di Firenze
- Biblioteca Labronica Francesco Domenico Guerrazzi, Livorno
- Biblioteca Marucelliana, Florence
- Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze
- Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma
- Biblioteca Roncioniana, Prato
- Biblioteca Universitaria, Pisa
- Domus Galilaeana, Pisa
- Gabinetto scientifico-letterario G.P. Vieusseux, Florence
- Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Venice
- Pontificia Università Gregoriana, Rome
A research interface allows exploration of the manuscript material, with possibilities for both focused and broad investigations, as well as for a comparison of different versions of the texts. The printed works and the secondary bibliography are accessible through lists that provide an overview of what is available, even for those who do not have previous knowledge. A bio-bibliographical chronology and biographical sketches of those contemporaries of Caverni that played a particular role in his life are intended to aid the reconstruction of the contexts that made up the background to his personal and intellectual development.
We hope that the Theka Caverni can be a prototype of the tool to be used to help (and in certain cases even to allow) the study of times, social environments or people, a study that until now has been arduous because of the difficulties of finding and consulting the sources.