The palace, existing as early as the 17th century, belonged to the Tiburtine Mattias family, coming to the Coccanari Fornari family following the marriage of Filippo and Pompea Mattias.
The building became the property of the City of Tivoli as a result of the will by which Countess Maria Coccanari Fornari, who died on September 4, 1982, left the “paternal house” to her brothers Giovanni Battista and Luigi Vergelli, with the condition that they in turn cede it to a “moral institution of their liking, with donation made in my name.”
In December 1982, the heirs, respecting the Countess’ wishes, communicated their intention to donate the building to the City Hall to make it the seat of the Municipal Library, to be named after the deceased.
The donation was accepted by council resolution on December 10, 1982, and the municipality took possession of the building on November 29, 1983.
Having carried out a series of renovations, the Library’s new home was inaugurated on November 22, 1986.
Closed in October 1987 due to stability problems, after extensive consolidation work, the “Maria Coccanari Fornari” Municipal Library was finally reopened on May 10, 2007.
It has a consultation and reading room for 103 seats and a children’s room for an additional 10 seats, a multimedia room and a multipurpose room.
The specialized thematic sections cover: ancient collections, foreign literature in original language, history, music and other local documentation.
The total number of volumes on hand is about 37,000.
November 30, 2023 marked the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the Library.
The dedication of the Garden was held on March 20, 2024.
The garden is named after Hypatia of Alexandria, a mathematician and astronomer who was killed for her revolutionary ideas (in fact, she was the first to theorize that the Earth is not the center of the universe but a planet revolving around the Sun).
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