The Ancient Bruno Emmert fund is one of the most precious and important cultural heritages of Arco in terms of the number of collected volumes as well as in terms of their value. Some of the works in the collection are very rare, some actually unique and are all prestigious and of undeniable scientific value. At the beginning of the nineties, the local administration in close collaboration with the ’Ufficio beni librari e archivistici della Provincia’ (office of heritage and archives of the province) initiated a painstaking process of thorough research and valuation of the ancient fund. The fund possesses 35.000 documents of which nearly 2000 are periodical and total up to 50.000 volumes. The fund holds mostly historical and literary content with an important section dedicated to bibliographical works of local and regional interest.
The biggest section is therefore the historical one, universal (around 2200 volumes and 500 pamphlets), but mainly Napoleonic Era and the Risorgimento (around 4500 volumes and 2700 pamphlets).
The collection of works of local interest, of Trentino authors or treating topics regarding Trento counts 9000 volumes.
The holding is mostly composed of publications dating back to the 17th and 18th century but there also 29 works dating back to the 14th century, 227 editions dating to the 15th century and 2046 dating to the 16th century. Most editions are in Italian and German but there are also French, English and classical Latin works as well as some texts in Slavic languages.
