The seat of the Sassi multimedia Library is the Complex of St. Francesco which is right at the centre of the main square in Fabriano. It’s undergone several renovation works and transformations during the years.
After the 13th century church the former convent along Via St. Filippo was built; in 1450 Pope Nicolo V ordered the building of the wonderful loggia. Due to the earthquake occurred in 1741 and to the transformation into a public building ( at the beginning of the 20th century it turned into a post office and part of the church became a cinema and a museum) it was deeply renovated. After all of these transformations a new unexpected event took place: the 1997earthquake.
Such an important cultural seat in the heart of Fabriano was immediately renovated: at first the loggia was shored up and strengthened, then it regained its structural efficiency; finally the other parts of the complex underwent structural renovation work. Great attention was paid in the preservation of the few remaining original parts of the church, such as the round- headed arch of the side portal and the single, trefoil headed window.
Once the structural efficiency was regained, the library was put in working order thanks to European funds.
The audio- visual library of Fabriano ( BMF) gathers, organizes and is at the disposal of the public for any information and contents in any type of support. It integrates the resources and uses multimedia. It collects about 100,000 documents, divided into topics and type of material:
- Fiction divided into different literary genres, sorted alphabetically by author: adventure, science fiction, fantasy, comics, horror, humour, fiction authors, pink fiction, thrillers, travel;
- Literary essays: reference, social sciences, language, languages and cultures, natural sciences, technique, art, history and geography, letters, cinema, music, paper;
- Cinema and music: about 1,000 books and 2,000 cinema DVDs divided into: animation, adventure, comedy, documentary, space age, fantasy, horror, musical, TV series, thriller, western, sentimental;
- storage and preservation: historical archives, lending library, discontinued or no longer subscribed historical magazines;
- local history: collection of works about Fabriano and its surroundings or by local authors;
Special funds: collection of manuscripts, incunabula, 16th and 17th century writings, scrolls, the Milani and Molaioli funds;
-historical archives: more than 7,000 pieces including scrolls and documents, the oldest ones of which date back to the 11th century.
There’s also a section reserved for children from 0 to 3 years of age with low shelves and boxes suitable for them. Here there are books such as fairy tales, illustrated books, books with small capital letters. A large bibliography is suitable for children from 8 to 14 years of age.