Albèri Libruary

The evocative environment, inserted between the cathedral and the Papal palaces, was built in 1449 to house the library of the archdeacon Antonio Albèri (1423ca – 1505), who in his will (1482) arranged to leave his collection to the Duomo: over 300 volumes, including manuscripts and precious incunabula. It is on the example of the Piccolomini Library, built inside the Sienese cathedral (1492-1507), that Albèri planned to build a new environment to house his library. It was decorated between 1501 and 1503, in the same years in which the construction site of the Nova Chapel entrusted to Luca Signorelli was active.

The Albèri Library houses an extraordinarily precious object, full of history and tradition and of a symbolic value that exceeds its cultural value and is still part of a living and real history: the Reliquary of the Corporal, the silver tabernacle signed by Sienese goldsmith Ugolino di Vieri in 1338 who in his enamels contains the oldest figurative tale in the history of the Eucharistic miracle that took place in Bolsena in 1263.