The ‘Librara’, a Female Librarian in Seventeenth-Century Genoese Nunneries

The purpose of this article is to discuss the relatively unknown figure of the librara, a kind of ante-litteram librarian present in the Italian female monastic communities after the Tridentine Reforms. The research has focused on the analysis of some printed rules and constitutions related to some orders of nuns operating in Genoa during the XVII century. The Monastic Rule Codes define the practices pertaining to the nuns’ life, and in some of these rules tell about the existence of a role for nuns specifically dedicated to the management and preservation of the books in the monasteries.