2026 DIARY

A project of the Vatican Apostolic Library
in collaboration with the artist Beppe Giacobbe

Vatican City, 11 November 2025

The Vatican Apostolic Library announces the release of the 2026 Diary, a well-established editorial and cultural project that involves collaboration with a renowned contemporary artist each year. For the year 2026, the project will feature the participation of Milanese illustrator Beppe Giacobbe.

The project originates from the ironic and sagacious treatise by bibliophile Gaetano Volpi, Del furore d'aver libri (On the Fury of Owning Books), published in Padua in 1756. The text brings together a series of guidelines necessary for the proper preservation of books, with particular reference to practices to be avoided and the types of damage that result from them. Water, wax, ink, creases, animals and children become minor phobias exorcised by the imaginative power of Giacobbe's illustrations.

“A tear, a scratch, a grease stain, a splash of ink are accidents that ruin but at the same time create new shapes, colours and images”.

B. Giacobbe

The 2026 Diary is available online on the Library’s website, and at selected bookshops in Rome.

Further details and purchase:

https://www.vaticanlibrary.va/it/pubblicazioni/AA_16/view.html

Vatican Apostolic Library
Cortile del Belvedere

00120 Città del Vaticano Tel. +39 06/69879575