Specialised in subjects such as art, applied art, museology, museum design, graphic design, architecture, design, fashion and the visual arts in general.

Today the collection of the Biblioteca d’Arte is of interest mainly to researchers, conservators, university and school faculty, journalists and scholars, and holds over 100.000 volumes, a number which is steadily rising thanks to purchases, bibliographical exchanges and donations. Of particularly importance were the donations by Marco Valsecchi, Wart Arslan and Gian Alberto Dell’Acqua. In the decentralised periodicals site around 1600 art related publications (286 of which are active subscriptions) and serial collections are available for consultation both in paper and digital format.

As well as the directories and digital collections, the Biblioteca d’Arte also possesses an antique holding and collection of rare editions including important series of folio art atlases of highly varied content from the 17th to 19th centuries: travelogues, artists’ sketchbooks, drawings of classical works, copies of museum masterpieces, chorotypes of cities and basilicas made during the 18th and 19th centuries. The antique holding counts in all a few thousand works from the 16th to the19th centuries, among which are 39 16th century and 95 17th century editions. Of particular interest is the special holding of folders and art books (with originals by Treccani, Fiume, Kandinsky, De Chirico, Pomodoro and Depero).