Sir Anthony PanizziItalian librarian
View All (2)
Also known as
  • Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi
born

September 16, 1797

Brescello, Italy

died

April 8, 1879

London, England

Sir Anthony Panizzi, original name Antonio Genesio Maria Panizzi    (born Sept. 16, 1797, Brescello [Italy]—died April 8, 1879London, Eng.), Italian patriot and man of letters who became famous as a librarian at the British Museum and played a part in the unification of Italy.

In 1822 Panizzi was forced into exile to avoid arrest as a revolutionary. He arrived in England in 1823 and, after teaching Italian at Liverpool, became professor of Italian at University College, London (1828–37). In 1831 he was named assistant librarian at the British Museum, and he became principal librarian in 1856. As a librarian and administrator, Panizzi was responsible for the reorganization and the new spirit of energy and concern for scholarship that made the museum one of the world’s great centres of culture. He planned and began work on the general catalog; secured strict enforcement of the 1842 Copyright Act; drew up a report on the library’s deficiencies that led to an increased grant for book purchases in 1845; improved staff conditions by insisting on the museum’s recognition as a branch of the civil service; and was responsible, through his friendship with Thomas Grenville, for the bequest of the Grenville library in 1846. He is best remembered, however, for designing and supervising the building of the Reading Room, opened in May 1857 (see illustration).

Although he became a British citizen in 1832, Panizzi continued to further the cause of Italian liberty through his friendship with influential Liberal statesmen in England, with Adolphe Thiers in France, and with the Italian leaders. After the unification of Italy, he declined invitations from Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Count di Cavour to return as senator or as a member of the Council of Public Instruction, preferring to continue to serve as “unofficial ambassador” in London.

Panizzi’s literary works include editions of Matteo Boiardo’s Orlando innamorato and Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1830–34) and of Boiardo’s minor poems (1835). In his later years he was a close friend of Prosper Mérimée. He retired in 1866 and was knighted in 1869.

What made you want to look up Sir Anthony Panizzi?
(Please limit to 900 characters)
Please select the sections you want to print
Select All
MLA style:
"Sir Anthony Panizzi". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2015. Web. 05 Mar. 2015
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441346/Sir-Anthony-Panizzi>.
APA style:
Sir Anthony Panizzi. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441346/Sir-Anthony-Panizzi
Harvard style:
Sir Anthony Panizzi. 2015. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 05 March, 2015, from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441346/Sir-Anthony-Panizzi
Chicago Manual of Style:
Encyclopædia Britannica Online, s. v. "Sir Anthony Panizzi", accessed March 05, 2015, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441346/Sir-Anthony-Panizzi.

While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies.
Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions.

Click anywhere inside the article to add text or insert superscripts, subscripts, and special characters.
You can also highlight a section and use the tools in this bar to modify existing content:
Editing Tools:
We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles.
You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind:
  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica articles are written in a neutral, objective tone for a general audience.
  2. You may find it helpful to search within the site to see how similar or related subjects are covered.
  3. Any text you add should be original, not copied from other sources.
  4. At the bottom of the article, feel free to list any sources that support your changes, so that we can fully understand their context. (Internet URLs are best.)
Your contribution may be further edited by our staff, and its publication is subject to our final approval. Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions.
MEDIA FOR:
Sir Anthony Panizzi
Citation
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Harvard
  • Chicago
Email
You have successfully emailed this.
Error when sending the email. Try again later.

Or click Continue to submit anonymously:

Continue
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441346/Sir-Anthony-Panizzi
www.britannica.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2015-11
51204
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:U4JSY3YI4YPWB3BYOQSZA5SVODSUSON5
<urn:uuid:d1540e21-7b36-4fb7-8ff3-1854c99dd742>
2015-03-05T12:46:06Z
208.185.238.71
sha1:I2HGLXPQRMWUGGFK2IMF2TMVEIMGXHX7
<urn:uuid:9e6d3cbd-1ab6-4f9e-8ba3-899226d0d202>
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/441346/Sir-Anthony-Panizzi
response
<urn:uuid:90f00d40-8af4-488c-a696-bce578acc8bf>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-28-5-156.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2015-11
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for February 2015
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf