The Library of Historical Linguistics, founded in 1939 together with the first configuration of the Institute of Historical Linguistics, is located in the building of Literary Science within the Campus "Città Universitaria".
The Library was consituted starting from a fund that was already part of the library of the Institute of Classical Philology. After a long history of purchases, exchanges, gifts, transfers from other institutes, the Section of Historical Linguistics has acquired a significant status within the scientific community. The Institute has been under the direction of Antonio Pagliaro for a long time, then later under that of Walter Belardi.
The assets of the Library, including volumes acquired over a period of seventy years of scientific and didactic activity, covers various sectors - from Theoretical to Historical and Descriptive Linguistics, Phonetics and Phonology, Semantics, Sociolinguistics, etc.
The sections dedicated to Indo-European languages is particularly rich, with special attention to periods and areas not otherwise covered within the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy.
Among others, the following sections represent particular points of interest:
- The Ancient and Medieval sections of Iranian language, established also thanks to the donations of Pagliaro, Belardi and Cipriano;
- The assets of texts, dictionaries and magazines regarding the Medieval phases of Germanic languages;
- Sections relating to Non-Indo-European language groups, from Finno-Ugric to African and Amerindian linguistics.
The vast and valuable collection of texts from the Belardi and Cipriano assets is a precious source for linguistics and Indo-European studies. It includes rare and valuable volumes in the Iranian and Armenian sectors which were later added to the patrimony of the Library.
The collection of both ancient and modern dictionaries - with an important presence of dialectal dictionaries - is also an important part of the assets of the Library.
The collection of scientific magazines is for the most part complete and includes some unique pieces in Italy.
The described book heritage represents a unique research tool in the various areas of study of Linguistics and is also open to scholars not affiliated to the University of Rome "La Sapienza".