Rossini’s bequest has given The Foundation an admirable historical collection consisting largely of autographs of many of the Maestro’s works, now preserved in the Tempietto Rossiniano and the Rossini National Museum.

In 1975, Maestro Vittorio Gui donated his entire music library to the Rossini Foundation: the Collection that bears his name consists of over 4,000 volumes, including sheet music and scores relative to the major composers who lived between the seventeenth century and the early decades of the twentieth century, obviously including Rossini. In 1999 the library was further enriched by the “Fondo Lord St. Davids”: a collection that takes its name from the English Lord from whom it was purchased, by the Rossini Foundation in collaboration with the Finiper Group, the Province of Pesaro and Urbino, the Cassa di Risparmio and the City of Pesaro.

The collection includes approximately 1,400 items, mainly precious printed editions of Rossini’s works, of scores and, in particular piano and vocal sheet music, as well as autograph letters and musical manuscripts. The collection is considered of great interest because it is made up of direct and contemporary evidence of the publishing fortune Rossini had during his lifetime. This has been not only an important source for the Critical Edition, but also a useful documentation of the first performances of Rossini’s operas.

In addition, the Rossini Foundation has acquired numerous handwritten musical sources, as well as librettos and other literary sources in the form of microfilms, necessary for the philological work of the Critical Edition. At the same time it has collected, through research in public and private libraries and archives, a significant amount of letters and documents concerning Rossini, all destined to be published in the epistolary Gioachino Rossini. Lettere e Documenti.

The Rossini Foundation has set up a reference room for the use of musicologists, scholars and students. It is dedicated to musicological literature, including the ever-increasing amount of publications on musical essays, on the history of music and literature, musicians, composers, characters, places and theatres that have been protagonists, along with a rich and updated specialised section on Gioachino Rossini and his works. Additional support is given by the presence of a newspaper section dedicated to the most important Italian and foreign scientific-musicological journals.

All the publications published by the Rossini Foundation are in the library. it is therefore possible to consult the entire updated collection of the Critical Edition, the issues of the «Bollettino del Centro Rossiniano di Studi» from 1955 to today, and the series Gioachino Rossini. Lettere e documenti, I Libretti di Rossini, Saggi e fonti, Iconografia Rossiniana and Tesi rossiniane, as well as nineteen volumes of the Quaderni rossiniani.