Zakynthos Municipal Library

The Municipal Library of Zakynthos: The Municipal Library of Zakynthos is located in Solomos Square, at the center of Zakynthos Town. It was originally established in 1628 when the Ionian islands were under Venetian occupation. For many decades, the library was housed in a building of the Venetian Castle, located above the town, and was home to many important manuscripts. The catastrophic earthquake of 1953 and a fire that followed destroyed a great part of the library, around 33,000 books from its unique collection. Among those were some writings of Kolokotronis and Lord Byron. In 1954, the library was moved to a school in Vassilikos and, later on, to the cultural center where it remains to this day.

The great shortage of books was covered by the locals, who donated a large part of their personal collections to the library. Particularly, the Municipal Library of Zakynthos today has an interesting photo collection, rare documents, and writings of Dionysios Solomos and other renowned poets and unique books (about 60.000 in number) relating to the history of the island. It also constitutes an important source of knowledge with countless books, CDs, videos and a rich exhibition with several items from the folk tradition.