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THE FIRST NEAPOLITAN journalist
organization, The Correspondents Union, was founded in 1907 in a mezzanine (two rooms in a
building which does not exist any more) in via Monteoliveto, at the corner of the old
Café Molaro and in front of the postal and telegraph service building, the historical
Palazzo Gravina, where journalists went many times a day to telegraph to their newspapers
their correspondences on facts of national relevance just as they were taking place.
The following year the post director allowed correspondents the use of a vast hall
adjacent to the telegraph room, with tables for the drawing up of articles and cabinets to
keep the first collections of newspapers and magazines, indispensable tools for work.
Generated by a professional need, the newspaper library grew very fast thanks to many
donations, among which the one donated by the journalist Vincenzo Riccio (minister of Post
in the Salandra Cabinet) and provided a free service of public consultation.
Vincenzo Tucci, correspondent of the “Giornale di Sicilia” was, among the
founders of the union, the one who gave the major impulse to the development of the
newspaper library.
In 1911 he achieved in obtaining from the Post a bigger site in the halls which belonged
in the past to the Orsini, and also book-cases and financial funds. He also received no
fewer than twenty-two large paintings by the outstanding artists of his age (Aprea,
Balestrieri, Carignani, Casciaro, Ciletti, Jerace, La Bella, Magnavacca, Parente, Passaro,
Postiglione, Prisciandaro, Uva, Viti and others) to which were added subsequently four
sculptures by D’Orso, Gatto and Mercatali.
In 1936 the seat of the “Tucci” was transferred to the Palazzo delle Poste
erected in Piazza Matteotti. Since then, three generations of journalist correspondents
have alternated in the administration of the growing structure in which every year
hundreds of students prepare their graduation theses at the side of researchers coming
from the universities of Tokyo, or Warsaw, or Bern, or Frankfurt, or Treviri, or Bamberg,
or Caracas, or Madrid, London or Paris, of Connecticut, Indiana, Nevada.
Together with the Ministry of Posts and telecommunications, the Ministry of Education, the
Provincial Administration, the City Council of Naples, The Camera di Commercio (Chamber of
Commerce), the Banco di Napoli have contributed to the development of the Tucci Newspaper
Library by means of financial interventions since 1915.
In the last few years, however, only the Banco di Napoli and The Camera di Commercio have
remained as supporters.
Since 1996, however, there is a law passed by the Regione Campania (The Campania Regional
Authority) that allowed the survival and development of a cultural body that has become a
constant reference point for researchers and students coming from five continents.
The Italian mail service, which succeeded the ministry, is accomplishing a remarkable
effort by maintaining detached, in the newspaper library, a small group of postmen, who
have become through the years archivists and librarians. |
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