The Ariostea Library was opened to the public in 1753; the Civic Library was named the Ariostea in 1933 on the fourth centenary celebrations of the death of Ludovico Ariosto. The library holds in the region of 3500 manuscripts and richly decorated books, the most precious being a manuscript signed by Orlando Furioso. The Savonarola collection contains many incunabola from Florence with wood engravings and a very important example of Jensen’s Venetian Bible of 1476 belonging to Savonarola himself. The walls of the upper floor have fragments of an important cycle of 15th Century frescoes.
