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Until a few years ago it was housed in Palazzo Mozzagrugno, seat of the Municipality of Lucera. The "Bonghi'' Library boasts a heritage of over 100,000 volumes, with a large collection of ancient volumes (about 20,000), which date mostly to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and are kept in the Hall of the sixteenth century, which takes its name from the historical period to which they largely date (855). In this section are jealously guarded 34 incunabula, various manuscripts and 153 parchments.
The library collection was founded in 1817 by the Marquis Gaetano De Nicastri, who made available his private collection, consisting of 5,000 volumes, inherited by the Marquis Giuseppe Scassa who had taken over a part of the private library of the arcade scholar Paolo Rolli in Naples. The fund was subsequently increased with other donations and has a pre-eminent historical-literary character, which is joined by a vast heritage of legal, political, scientific and technical works.
The most valuable ancient volume is represented by the Bible of Niccolò Malermi, a rare version (it is attested the existence of only four copies) of the Holy Bible. The ancient Bible was printed in 1477 in Venice by Antonio Bolognese and is characterized by a splendid miniature depicting the creation of Eve.
Other incredible examples are the manuscript Book of Privileges or Red Book or Great Book of the City of Lucera (authentic copy of as many as 70 documents concerning the history of Lucerne from 1301 to 1547); the General Treatise on Numbers and Measures by Nicolò Tartaglia (1550); Description of all Italy (1551) by Leandro Alberti.
